182.6lbs.
90mg Armour Thyroid X 2 – .30 HCG – 150mg- whole adrenal – 80mg adrenal cortex – 30mg pregnenolone
This morning I will take the adrenal & pregnenolone. I find that I cannot take it every day. It gives me the feeling that I am coming out of my skin. It almost feels like taking an SSRI. Weird.
I also don’t inject the HCG every day. I don’t know why.
Well, more than I could hope for? I am 79 days into HCG, lost 19 pounds and have 41 to go. I keep waiting for work to slow down so I can properly attend to my weight loss. 15 hour work days 7 days a week make me too tired to exercise or focus good energy on dieting.
Blogging is good because you can go back in time and find points.
August 7 2009 08/03/2009 – goal weight – 158.5lbs VS actual – 167lbs 8.5lbs over goal
For the last one, I had to go back to my old blog. My Life As A Fat Woman – riding my way to happiness. I’m too fat and too discouraged to use that blog anymore. That was back when I was an athlete, that was back when I truly believed I could gain control over my weight. That was the summer I bought into the fallacy: calories in vs calories burned equals weight loss. BULLSHIT.
Reading through my old blog depressed me. I feel as though I let myself down. Like I gave up on me. I broke promises to myself and did not accomplish what I set out to do. That’s just plain wrong. My Life As A Fat Woman was supposed to be a joke, a brief period in time where I lost control of my weight but then regained it. I did not know at the time that it would be what my life became.
We are going to the beach tomorrow. I was supposed to weigh 165 pounds by this weekend. I’m 17 pounds over that. But I’m ok. I want to go and have fun. I will pack up my surf board. I will bring my camera. I will bring my kindle and my netbook. I will bring my fire & my poi. I will relax. I will have fun.
I will ask again for comments. As I’ve stated before, the most difficult part about this journey is the overwhelming feeling that I am all alone. Any comments will be greatly appreciated…
186.0lbs.
90mg Armour Thyroid X 2 – .30 HCG – 150mg- whole adrenal – 80mg adrenal cortex – 30mg pregnenolone
This morning is the first day in 5 days I have taken the Armour thyroid meds. My prescription ran out & I didn’t have time to pick it up until last night. Didn’t make that much of a difference. I haven’t shot up the HCG since Wednesday. I am still losing weight slowly. The adrenal & pregnenolone seem to be helping. I’m getting used to them more, less trouble getting to sleep. I just have to remember to take them early in the day.
Still no time to exercise. I start work at 7AM and get done at 10-11PM. Saturday & Sunday really aren’t that different. I hope I am getting caught up with work. My mental desire to exercise is high, but physically, I’m exhausted. I’m totally f*cked tomorrow. I haven’t rode my bike in 2 months and I have a 30 mile intermediate ride to do.
Thinking through the choices of the last 2 weeks. No time to exercise is a choice I’ve had to stick to up til now. I have to get this business going. My employees and my retirement are depending on it. I’m so far behind that each day is totally insane.
Food choices – I eat eggs. One at a time, hard-boiled. I am back to doing the EAS shakes. 110 calories, 17 grams of protein & 3 grams of carbs. I only drink water. I eat strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and black berries every day. It’s my new junk food. I tried a couple days of using 1 macadamia nut to stave off my hunger every few hours. That worked until I missed a feeding session and ate all the rest of them. If I can discipline myself better, that could be real helpful. Hell, it’s what the super-models do and they are severely thin.
Where the problem has been coming in is that in the late part of the day through the evening, I am trapped out working with no access to allowable food for 5+ hours, I’ll get home at 10 or 11pm and I am ravenous. So, I’ll eat 2 servings of the beef food that we pre-cook which is about 750 calories. If I am going to eat when I come home, it has to be no more than 200 calories. I have to find a solution for this.
Well, once again, wish me luck. If you’ve taken the time to come here and read this, take a moment to leave a comment. The hardest part of what I am doing right now is my lack of support, so comments mean a lot. Thanks!!
188.2lbs.
90mg Armour Thyroid X 2 – .30 HCG – 150mg whole adrenal – 80mg adrenal cortex – 30mg pregnenolone
Last night was hard. The adrenal caused me to be so amped up I couldn’t sleep. And I was hungry. And I ate more than I should have. The person I live with made beef, but put gravy on it that had flour in it. Took me all of 10 minutes after eating it to be ravenous. He told me after I ate it. Trying to make adjustments for it today.
Not feeling great. Stressful day at work. Employee issues, difficult clients. Not a great week to be dieting, but I will learn to get better with this.
187.4lbs.
90mg Armour Thyroid X 3 – .30 HCG – 150mg whole adrenal – 80mg adrenal cortex – 30mg pregnenolone
There was a drop in my weight this week. I tripled my thyroid meds and lost 4 pounds in 2 days. That is crazy. Yesterday I started back on the HCG. No loading or craziness, just trying to eat right and see if there is loss. My increase in thyroid replacement goes like this: one day 180mg, the next day 270mg, then alternating back & forth continually. Yes, I’m self-dosing. I still feel terrible and I want it to stop. I want to lose weight.
I eat moderately every day. An egg for breakfast, lots of berries, lean protein for dinner. I am not exercising now, just medicating. I’ve lost 14 pounds since starting this in Mid-May. That is a lot more then I lost last summer with all the exercise and dieting I did. (See the previous post for details)
Today I added the adrenal & pregnenolone to the mix. Theory is I am suffering from adrenal fatigue. That is why the exercise doesn’t help. The more I exercised, the more my body thought I was in distress. So it stored fat like crazy. That’s the doctors theory anyway.
He told me at today’s visit that I will find much more success with the HCG if I take care of the cortisol problem at the same time. Said that is why I store belly fat. He did the cortisol testing in May, had to capture all my pee in a container for 24 hours then take it to a lab. First time I was ever tested like that. Showed very low cortisol levels. One of the indicators of adrenal fatigue. So, I am giving it another 30 days to see what progress I make.
Several people asked me about the HCG, why I tapered off after only 15 days. I lost 8 pounds in 2 weeks, 15 days. That was good. But the diet is very mentally demanding. I was constantly focused on food, loss, diet. I didn’t mind suffering, but it was disruptive to my work, and I screwed up every weekend. Taking the higher dose of HCG made a difference.
So, we’ll see how it goes. What have I got to lose anyway. I’m so big now, I hate going out in public and can’t stand to be around anyone. Wish me luck – wish me success – wish me strength…
This is a page from my previous blog. Back when I believed calories in- calories expended=weight loss. I spent the summer riding my bike 200 miles a week and trying to diet. I used the Adkins modified diet. In 5 months with 6-day a week hard exercise and reduced calories, I lost 9 whole pounds. By January, I was so tired, burned out and frustrated I gave up. And went from 175-201lbs.
Last Monday was exciting, today is devastating. I’m supposed to be at 167.5lbs. I weighed in this morning at 174lbs. Next Monday I need to be at 165lbs. Yeah, I know- it’s all water weight. Whatever…
The reason I spent so much energy talking about this weekend last week was because I knew this was going to happen. I wanted to be prepared. I’m too early into it to be able to not exercise for 2 days & lose weight. Plus, I made some mistakes. That is what this blog is for, to isolate my mistakes and learn from them. To stumble and find the resolve to keep going. To be defeated and pick myself back up. To change the outcome in spite of the mistakes. I needed to get hyper-focused on it so I didn’t make too many bad choices. The problem is I made 2 little, but devastating mistakes. Now it’s going to be really hard.
The difficulty is that I am in week 3. At week 3, your body figures out what you are doing and changes your metabolism to adjust to the change in calorie reduction and increased exercise. So how much you can lose through the course of a week slows dramatically. It is devastating to me because the difference between 174lbs & 167lbs is 1 whole clothing size. That opens me up to a new world of possibilities. And one of the things I’m using to motivate myself is being able to fit into my clothes again. If you read earlier posts, I only have 3 outfits for this size. I refuse to buy any more. So, I only have 3 changes of clothes. It’s been like this since last summer. That’s why I’m always wearing the same clothes when you see me. That was my desperate attempt to regain control of my weight. That was my whole game plan – no wonder I failed. Ha!!
I may not be able to make up the 7lbs for several weeks now that I am more metabolically resistant. It throws everything off. But I knew this wasn’t going to be easy. But let me get on to the mistakes, that’s what you want to read about.
So, we packed up the cooler with lots of good choices, no convenient store stops for us. That was really helpful. We had tuna & oysters, cheese & fruit, nuts & sunflower seeds. All in single-serve, 200 calorie baggies. Therein lies mistake number one.
I know you are rereading that last part, trying to fiure it out. No mention of bread, potatoes, pasta, chocolate cake, no chocolate & no cake. No ice cream, fudge, potato chips, twinkies, ding-dongs, slim-jims. Sounded like good, healthy foods, what was the mistake?? What, you ask?? The fruit & the nuts.
The weird thing is- I ate the fruit knowing it was going to cause problems. I’m sitting here eating cherries right now as I write this. And my body is responding already, just like Saturday. Within the last 5 minutes, my stomach has swollen so much I look 4 months pregnant. 5 minutes - that’s how fast it happens. I don’t know what causes it. I am eating the cherries today as an experiment. Over the weekend, I ate fruit with nuts & cheese. So, I didn’t know which was causing the problems. Today, I am eating a small amount (20 cherries) to see what happens. Wow, my stomach hurts.
I’m doing this because I have food allergies. I’m doing this because I can’t get my doctor to listen to me. The doctors write my physical reaction off as IBS – irritable bowel syndrome. And they have all kinds of great medications for you to take for it. Zelnorm & Lotronex are the lastest IBS drugs, or sometimes they prescribed an anti-spasmodic drug, a low-dose antidepressant or anti-diarrheal. (They write my conversation about food allergies off as insanity & OCD.) Have you read the side effects for some of these medicines? It is scary. They will tell you there is nothing else you can do for IBS except medicate. And that is total BS.
Have you ever seen anyone with strawberry allergies eat strawberries. Within 20 minutes, they break out in a rash. People with peanut allergies, they get respiratory symptoms almost immediately. These people are not put on dangerous, lifetime medicine treatments. They are simply told not to eat strawberries & nuts. I am allergic to wheat & starches like potatoes & rice. When I eat them, my intestines & stomach swell tremendously for several hours & my insulin levels go crazy. This causes my body to become a super fat-storing machine. So, I don’t eat them. And I don’t have problems, without the medications. But most doctors won’t tell you this… I don’t understand why, but that’s a whole other blog.
I was really surprised last week when I ate some fruit & nuts and had the same reaction. I usually eat fruit with the other foods I mentioned, so I didn’t know it was a problem. This weekend I brought fruit, nuts & cheese to keep me from eating candy & cookies from the convenience stores. That worked. But, it caused my metabolism to slow. I kept getting sleepy & cranky. And the crazy swelling. Because I ate the fruit with the nuts & cheese, I couldn’t tell which caused the problem. Now I know it was the fruit.
I won’t eat nuts again until I’ve lost the weight because the carbs are the wrong kind. With the diet I am on, I can only eat dark, green vegetable carbs. That, with the protein, causes my body to burn fat & my metabolism to remain steady. I am trying to stay away from cheese because it’s too high in fat for the amount of protein it has. I keep talking about this because it helps me stay on track. Blah blah, blah…
Yes, I said 2 problems, but the second one is a no-brainer. Saturday, we were in San Marcos. It was dinner time & we were hungry. Not many choices. We opted for Logan’s. Steak & shrimp. It wasn’t bad in the sense that we ate the bad foods. Actually we did real good. We made the waitress take the bread off the table & didn’t order potatoes. Aside from the peanuts, it wasn’t that bad. Steak, shrimp, onions & mushrooms. (the onions had a ton of sugar in them) But the calorie count was high. I’m guessing around 1000 calories. Too many calories for just one meal.
Sunday, we were in Buda. We went to Chili’s. I had the southwest eggrolls, 900 calories and 59 grams of carbs. I got really sleepy & cranky after eating that. Never again. Restaurants are always hard for me. I don’t eat lettuce, so won’t have a salad unless they have spinach or spring greens. Most restaurants don’t have them.
I don’t know what to do with this left-over fruit. Why do I feel so bad about throwing it out. [because of all the starving children in some far away country] It’s not like keeping it and eating it is going to help them at all. how weird…
**DISCLAIMER – A high-protein, low-carb diet can be dangerous, if you do not drink ALOT of fluids. I drink 16.9oz bottles of water. I drink between 8-12 of them per day. That’s 101-202 ounces of water daily. This diet flushes alot of chemicals & toxins through your liver & kidneys, making it imperative to drink LOTS of water every day. When we ride and deplete our fluids, we have to really replenish them. Also, this is not a long-term diet. Once I’ve hit my goal, I will slowly start adding vegetables and fruits, oats & grainy bread back into my diet. This is a short term solution to a lifelong situation, since we, as women, deal with our weight forever.**
193.8
Armour 90, 30HCG
It felt necessary. increasing my dosage. I feel too hungry all of the time and I’m cheating a little bit here and a little bit there. I’m very happy to be below 195, but I need to do better.
I did not do my exercising this morning or yesterday. I want to use my stair stepper for 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in evening. I have to find a way to force myself to do it.
I want to be thin again. I don’t expect for it to happen all by itself. I know that this diet being successful is going to depend on my choices. I will egknowledge that the diet very misle consuming. but I will work hard at getting better at doing the diet successfully.
193.4lbs.
90mg Armour Thyroid – .28 HCG
Tuesday Tracking – Week 2: 2.59lbs lost this week, 8.4 lbs lost overall.
As I end week 2 I am frustrated with myself. I have not followed protocol. It has been 15 days. Why are you pissing away your last chance to get to a normal and healthy weight? Isolate the excuses and do this right.
1. End of the day hunger. No eating to get sleepy. Just suffer through it.
2. Force feed the cucumbers and vegetables.
3. Carry acceptable food with you when you leave the office.
4. Trouble-shoot the weekend and remove stumbling blocks.
I have to make an attempt to add the exercise in daily. Use the stepper, it’s here. Just for 10 minutes twice a day. Very basic. Please do this.
195.0lbs.
90mg Armour Thyroid – .28 HCG
Saturday, I did a bike ride. 13 miles at around 13mph. I felt good except in the climbs, that surprised me. I thought I was going to have trouble for the whole ride, but was able to lead the group well, except for the climbs. Saturday morning I weighed in at 192.0. That was very good. I maintained the low calories for most of the day on Saturday.
Sunday we were at the boat so I didn’t weigh in the morning. I also forgot to pack my thyroid medicine. I made the same mistakes this weekend. Rushing around in the car all day, left the cooler on the boat, no way to port good food. Waited way too long to eat. Convinced myself that the tired painful feeling would go away with food. Got over-hungry, went to restaurant and ate high calorie food. Not crazy high calories, but high enough to cause weight gain. Restaurant salad, ahi tuna, cole slaw with vinegar. Then, I couldn’t sleep when we got home, so I ate a container of guacamole. This morning the scale responded.
However, last night, when we came home I weighed myself. The scale read 188.6.
I weighed myself several more times to confirm, and each time is said 188.6. That made me really happy. I’m thinking it could have been the exercise. So I’m thinking I want to try to incorporate some exercise into every day, maybe. I say maybe because while I didn’t have a problem after the ride on Saturday, Sunday I was exhausted. I understand we were doing 8 straight hours of marathon furniture shopping, but still. So we will see what happens with the energy level, see if exercise is something that will be helpful.
195.0lbs.
90mg Armour Thyroid – .28 HCG
Yesterday was interesting. We had a client function that required us to bring in catered food and spend the afternoon with it. Empanadas, crackers, cheese, desserts etc. Usually I would have eaten some of the carb food, got ravenous and consumed tons of calories. Although I ate more than 500 calories, I stuck with the fruit salad most of the day. Strawberries, blueberries and pineapple. I know the pineapple is a mistake because of the high sugar content, but I think I’ll survive. I did have 1 mini empanada. I was pleased at my limited control.
I did not have time to take my shot in the morning. By evening I was uncontrollably hungry and the headache crepted in. I thwarted it immediately by eating a small serving of meatballs. I have a slight gain this morning, so I will go hard-core all day, headache be damned. I’m concerned about the weekend since last weekend saw bad choices. We shall see. One day at a time. Today I will focus on today.
194.0lbs.
90mg Armour Thyroid – No HCG shot today
There was no headache yesterday. I added non-protocol food, although I don’t know if that had anything to do with it. All I do know is there was relief from the pain and that was good. Today will be scary as I have to host a Realtor Open House with fancy high calorie food. I’m serving a cucumber salad and a strawberry salad so I will have something specific to eat. I hope this trick works.
197.4lbs.
90mg Armour Thyroid – .28 HCG
Yesterday was similar to Sunday, only the pain was stronger. The headache started around 8am, by 10pm I couldn’t take it any more. 14 hours of truly intense pain. I don’t know what to do. Nothing made it better. I took medicine, took a nap, none of that even caused it to ease a little. The food I ate after 10pm made the pain go away. But I can’t eat just to get the pain to subside. Today I am up 1.4lbs. I have to lose weight, not find another excuse for bad eating choices. I could hear my daughter chiding me in my head all last night. You’re wasting your money if you’re not going to follow the diet. Just suffer through the headaches, it’s not that hard. OMG, you’ll come up with all kinds of excuses to cheat, won’t you. No wonder you’re so fat.
I have a lot of mixed feelings this morning. I did try to stick it out. We have an important deadline at work this week, I was barely able to participate yesterday. I stuck with the headache ALL day. By 10pm, I was tired of it hurting, I needed a break from it. I’m not expecting it to be easy, but yesterday was unbearable. I don’t know what to do.
196.0lbs.
90mg Armour Thyroid – .28 HCG
Tuesday Tracking – Week 1: 6lbs lost this week, 6 lbs lost overall.
One day at a time. One foot in front of the other. Focus on movement, not distance. It’s easy to get impatient on this diet. But it’s rather silly to do so. Reading the forums, seeing many of us get disheartened over not losing more than .4lb or having a day of stall. I guess we lose sight of the fact that traditional weight loss encourages a loss of 1-2 pounds per week, much less than the .5-1lb loss per day we see on HCG. But I am still in a place where I am getting through each day one hour at a time. Some days, I feel the passing of every minute. I am not able to engage my mind meaningfully in anything else. I hope this goes away.
198.0lbs.
90mg Armour Thyroid – .28 HCG
Another day. Yesterday I cheated, with a vengeance. I was told to skip my shot, which I did. No food until 11am, and then I was crazy hungry. Crazy hungry, insane headache, sharp pains in my shoulders neck and spine. I just knew it was the diet, lack of nutrition.
Off to Mimi’s Restaurant for an amazing ‘feel better’ breakfast. Crab omelette with hollandaise, banana nut loaf, warm blueberry muffin, grilled potatoes, orange juice! 2 hours later, all the pain still there and add to it being sick to my stomach, bloated beyond belief.
Well… that’s better… NOT. So, today we resign ourselves to moving past the bad choice and getting back on track. Advice from someone on the HCG forum. Good advice, thank you.
198.6
Armour thyroid – no HCG this is a skip day.
I gave up on myself again today. So, the other reason why I’m still fat.
Is it that I just don’t love myself enough? I’m sitting here now trying to see the reason, the motivation behind making the bad choices that I did this morning.
I know that there are consequences to our bad choices. I know that everything in life is cause and effect. I know that eating high calorie food is going to cause me keep the weight on. So why did I do it?
How did ‘I feel hungry’ turning into ‘I deserve to eat high, fat high calorie food’?
Enjoying the pain because you know how great the results will be. I’ve lived much of my life like that. So what is different now? Where did I get so weak and whiny and lost?
197.4lbs.
No Armour Thyroid – .25 HCG
I’m trying to figure out what causes me to think about food constantly now that I’m tracking my intake. I hope its just a new diet thing that wears off. So, Day 6, going well. Other than the strong headache this morning, I feel good.
I find it fascinating that I cannot get people to engage me honestly when I talk realistically about being overweight. I’m trying to figure out if I would respond the same way if I were still thin and talking to someone overweight. The litany of “you’re not that fat, i don’t believe you weight that much and you shouldn’t look at it that way” surprises me. I want my language to be responsible, to be real. I don’t want to act as though I had no part in the overweight outcome. I want to hold myself accountable. That is what will empower me to overcome my poor eating habits so I can become healthy. Mind you, I am careful not to beat myself up in a derogatory way. And I am sure that sometimes I am negative and self-pitying. But I try to limit how much I do that and only do it when alone, in a personal pity party.
I am also fascinated with the people that think I’m crazy for doing the HCG. ”Anyone would lose weight on 500 calories.” Yes, but who could eat a 500 calorie diet and stick with it? The HCG doesn’t cause weight loss, it causes your body to metabolize your fat for energy. That reduces the number of calories you need to consume daily. Without the HCG, you would go into starvation fairly quickly. Sorry naysayers, for now this is working. I trudge on…
198.8lbs.
90mg Armour Thyroid – .20 HCG
So, am 5 days into this. The week wasn’t a total success in terms of strictly adhering to the protocol of the diet. I was trying to ‘wing it’ too much. I think I’m back on track now. It is so good to see my weight nudge below 200. Made me feel more motivated then I’ve felt in months. My daughter chewed my butt about not adhering to the diet strictly enough. So soon she forgets her first week.
Monday was good, not very hungry. Tuesday there was a stressful incident and I reverted to stuffing my face to get through it. That cost me my 1lb loss and took me up to 203lbs. Wednesday I was back on track but with no game-plan. Thursday I adhered strongly and was rewarded with loss. It’s Friday and I just ate a few too many strawberries. I wonder what that will cause. Overall, this week was very stressful at work. I do need a better coping reaction to he stress. Today, I went into ‘shut-down’ mode and made it through the day.
I am very nervous about the weekend. Last weekend was a load weekend. My partner is not good at helping me stay on track. I know it is my resposibility, but I wish I had some good support somewhere. Well, wish me luck. It’s only 2 days out of town, I’ll be ok.
201lbs.
90mg Armour Thyroid – .20 HCG
Weight has hit a new high. Been at 200lbs for several months. New doctor, new theory. This one sounds different.
The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA or HTPA axis), also known as the limbic-hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (LHPA axis) and, occasionally, as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-gonadotropic axis, is a complex set of direct influences and feedback interactions among the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland (a pea-shaped structure located below the hypothalamus), and the adrenal (or suprarenal) glands (small, conical organs on top of the kidneys).
The interactions among these organs constitute the HPA axis, a major part of the neuroendocrine system that controls reactions to stress and regulates many body processes, including digestion, the immune system, mood and emotions, sexuality, and energy storage and expenditure.
A wide variety of species, from the most ancient organisms to humans, share components of the HPA axis. It is the common mechanism for interactions among glands, hormones, and parts of the midbrain that mediate the general adaptation syndrome (GAS).
Anatomy:
The key elements of the HPA axis are:
Paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus, which contains neuroendocrine neurons that synthesize and secrete vasopressin.
Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH).
These two peptides regulate:
The anterior lobe of the pituitary gland. In particular, CRH and vasopressin stimulate the secretion of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), once known as corticotropin.
ACTH in turn acts on:
The adrenal cortices, which produce glucocorticoid hormones (mainly cortisol in humans) in response to stimulation by ACTH. Glucocorticoids in turn act back on the hypothalamus and pituitary (to suppress CRH and ACTH production) in a negative feedback cycle.
CRH and vasopressin are released from neurosecretory nerve terminals at the median eminence. CRH is transported to the anterior pituitary through the portal blood vessel system of the hypophyseal stalk and vasopressin is transported by axonal transport to the posterior pituitary. There, CRH and vasopressin act synergistically to stimulate the secretion of stored ACTH from corticotrope cells.
ACTH is transported by the blood to the adrenal cortex of the adrenal gland, where it rapidly stimulates biosynthesis of corticosteroids such as cortisol from cholesterol.
Cortisol is a major stress hormone and has effects on many tissues in the body, including on the brain. In the brain, cortisol acts at two types of receptor – mineralocorticoid receptors and glucocorticoid receptors, and these are expressed by many different types of neurons. One important target of glucocorticoids is the hypothalamus, which is a major controlling centre of the HPA axis.
Vasopressin can be thought of as “water conservation hormone” and is also known as “antidiuretic hormone.” It is released when the body is dehydrated and has potent water-conserving effects on the kidney. It is also a potent vasoconstrictor.
Important to the function of the HPA axis are some of the feedback loops:
Cortisol produced in the adrenal cortex will negatively feedback to inhibit both the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland. This reduces the secretion of CRH and vasopressin, and also directly reduces the cleavage of proopiomelanocortin (POMC) into ACTH and β-endorphins.
Epinephrine and norepinephrine are produced by the adrenal medulla through sympathetic stimulation and the local effects of cortisol (upregulation enzymes to make E/NE). E/NE will positively feedback to the pituitary and increase the breakdown of POMCs into ACTH and β-endorphins.
Function:
Release of CRH from the hypothalamus is influenced by stress, by blood levels of cortisol and by the sleep/wake cycle.
In healthy individuals, cortisol rises rapidly after wakening, reaching a peak within 30–45 minutes. It then gradually falls over the day, rising again in late afternoon. Cortisol levels then fall in late evening, reaching a trough during the middle of the night.
An abnormally flattened circadian cortisol cycle has been linked with chronic fatigue syndrome, insomnia and burnout.
Anatomical connections between brain areas such as the amygdala, hippocampus, and hypothalamus facilitate activation of the HPA axis.
Sensory information arriving at the lateral aspect of the amygdala is processed and conveyed to the central nucleus, which projects to several parts of the brain involved in responses to fear.
At the hypothalamus, fear-signaling impulses activate both the sympathetic nervous system and the modulating systems of the HPA axis.
Increased production of cortisol mediates alarm reactions to stress, facilitating an adaptive phase of a general adaptation syndrome in which alarm reactions including the immune response are suppressed, allowing the body to attempt countermeasures.
Glucocorticoids have many important functions, including modulation of stress reactions, but in excess they can be damaging.
Atrophy of the hippocampus in humans and animals exposed to severe stress is believed to be caused by prolonged exposure to high concentrations of glucocorticoids.
Deficiencies of the hippocampus may reduce the memory resources available to help a body formulate appropriate reactions to stress.
Stress & Disease:
The HPA axis is involved in the neurobiology of mood disorders and functional illnesses, including anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, insomnia, post-traumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, major depressive disorder, burnout, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and alcoholism.
Antidepressants, which are routinely prescribed for many of these illnesses, serve to regulate HPA axis function.
Experimental studies have investigated many different types of stress, and their effects on the HPA axis in many different circumstances. Stressors can be of many different types – in experimental studies in rats, a distinction is often made between “social stress” and “physical stress”, but both types activate the HPA axis, though via different pathways.
Several monoamine neurotransmitters are important in regulating the HPA axis, especially dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine (noradrenaline). There is evidence that an increase in oxytocin, resulting for instance from positive social interactions, acts to suppress the HPA axis and thereby counteracts stress, promoting positive health effects such as wound healing.
The HPA axis is a feature of mammals as well as other vertebrates. For example, biologists studying stress in fish showed that social subordination leads to chronic stress, related to reduced aggressive interactions, to lack of control and to the constant threat imposed by dominant fish.
Serotonin (5HT) appeared to be the active neurotransmitter involved in mediating stress responses, and increases in serotonin are related to increased plasma α-MSH levels, which causes skin darkening (a social signal in salmonoid fish), activation of the HPA axis, and inhibition of aggression.
Inclusion of the amino acid L-tryptophan, a precursor of 5HT, in the feed of rainbow trout made the trout less aggressive and less responsive to stress. However, the study mentions that plasma cortisol was not affected by dietary L-tryptophan.
Studies on people show that the HPA axis is activated in different ways during chronic stress depending on the type of stressor, the person’s response to the stressor and other factors.
Stressors that threaten physical integrity, are uncontrollable or involve trauma tend to have a high, flat diurnal profile of cortisol release with lower than normal levels of cortisol in the morning and higher than normal levels in the evening, resulting in a high overall level of cortisol release during the day.
Controllable stressors on the other hand tend to produce higher than normal morning cortisol. Stress hormone release tends to gradually reduce as time passes since the stress occurred.
In post-traumatic stress disorder there appears to be lower than normal cortisol, and it is thought that a blunted hormonal response to stress may predispose a person to develop PTSD.
195lbs
I head into 2011 at the highest weight in my life. I am devastated but accountable. I have to lose this weight and get thinner. I am grotesque. I had to go out and buy new clothes because my second set of fat clothes are too small. My excuses are all gone. I feel as though this is a last chance for me. While I hate being fat, I am getting used to it. I cannot live my life like this. I’m winded all the time, it’s hard to move, all of my joints hurt. It totally sucks.
Some rules.
One, eat the right foods, please.
Two, stick to your plan, for God’s sake.
Three, start to weigh yourself less.
Schedule: 4 pounds per week. I’m not even going to write a chart, just do the silly math as you go. From today to April. It’s gotta be hard-core.
So, forward we go. Every minute of every day, with every decision I make I will be determining whether I am serious about this. We shall see…
185lbs.
225 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam – 100mg Progesterone.
vitamin supplements. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 6600IU. L-Carnitine – 500mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg. Omega-3 fatty acids – 2240mg. (EPA – 1360mg. DHA – 680mg.) Calcium-999mg. (Magnesium-399mg. Zinc-15mg.) Co-enzyme Q10-200mg. (Vitamin c-30mg. L-Carnitine-600. Lecithin-1000mg.) Glucosamine-2000mg. (Vitamin B6-3mg. Pantothenic acid [vitamin B5]15mg. MSM-500mg. Chondroitin-150mg. Collagen type II-50mg.)
1 egg-97cal. 18oz green tea-0cal. TOTAL CALORIES – .
1 17oz bottles water.
Leg Routine? Walking?
Yesterday was hard. My mind shut down to work and I played on my blogs. The therapist said this is happening because my mind is still having periods where it needs to go into rest mode because it becomes overloaded. When I think of all the amazing work I have done over the last few weeks, I think it is ok that this happened for one day. I actually feel ready to take on today.
To a beautiful day...
186lbs.
225 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam – 100mg Progesterone.
vitamin supplements. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 6600IU. L-Carnitine – 500mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg. Omega-3 fatty acids – 2240mg. (EPA – 1360mg. DHA – 680mg.) Calcium-999mg. (Magnesium-399mg. Zinc-15mg.) Co-enzyme Q10-200mg. (Vitamin c-30mg. L-Carnitine-600. Lecithin-1000mg.) Glucosamine-2000mg. (Vitamin B6-3mg. Pantothenic acid [vitamin B5]15mg. MSM-500mg. Chondroitin-150mg. Collagen type II-50mg.)
1 egg-97cal. 18oz green tea-0cal. 4 cheese slices-280cal. 1 egg-97cal. 1 chicken/veggie bowl-130cal. 2 chicken/veggie bowls-260cal. 1 tbs sauce-75cal. 1 tbs parmesan cheese-45cal. 1 adkins shake-160cal. 1 oz parmesan cheese-110. TOTAL CALORIES – 1254.
7 17oz bottles water.
Chest Routine? No. Walking? No.
The weekend went well. No walking Saturday, but I did do hard scrubbing of the boat for 10 hours. That should be an adequate substitute. I’m calculating 5 hours of continual scrubbing for a calorie burn of 1915 calories. Sunday was a 15 mile bike ride at an easy pace, burning 1110 calories.
Food was problematic. Much of the time my phone did not have service, no tweeting, so I have to figure my food intake by memory. Saturday: 1 egg-97cal. 2 shakes-360cal. 2 bags cashews-1040cal. 2 oz turkey-130cal. 1.5 oz cheese-200cal. salmon/vegetable dinner-400cal. Total of 2227 for Saturday.
Sunday: 1 bag cashews-520cal. 2 adkins bars-360cal. 2 protein shakes-240cal. Vegetable fajita dinner with 1/2 avocado, 2 tablespoons sour cream & guac sauce-603cal. Total of 1723 for Sunday.
This is what I was afraid would happen coming off the shakes. I have to find carry-able alternatives. I brought the 130 calorie chicken containers on Saturday, but at the boat, we were concerned about using the old, nasty microwave, so I didn’t eat them. Sunday I didn’t bother bringing them since I knew there was no way to heat them.
We will be modifying the boat to accommodate a built-in microwave on Friday. That makes the boat food-safe. I was successful carrying the food in my lunch box with 2 gel ice packs on Saturday. They stayed almost frozen all day. I could add a frozen water bottle to it for even longer storage.
I still need to come up with ideas for time in the car. We will spend 3-5 hour stretches in the car, shopping for equipment or something. Mr. Wonderful just runs to a gas sttion and grabs slim jims and cashews. I can’t do this anymore. I will work on this during the week and see what solutions there are.
I am excited going into today because I am in a safe place. Lots of hard boiled eggs & chicken/veggie containers. We will see how it goes until Friday.
191lbs.
225 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam – 100mg Progesterone.
vitamin supplements. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg. Omega-3 fatty acids – 2240mg. EPA – 1360mg. DHA – 680mg.
1 egg-97cal. 18oz green tea-0cal. 1 egg-97cal.
5 17oz bottles water.
Routine?
Well, it’s been a while. Fast update – I never made it to the fat dr appt and I didn’t do the 50 mile ride. There is a lot I didn’t do right after the last post. But I am getting to a healthy place again.
I’m back at work full time. The therapist I found is good. We are effectively working on irrational fear issues and action steps. My brain has unlocked. Very happy. We don’t know what did it, but it happened so I don’t care today.
My weight was hovering around 177-180lbs until I began the progesterone. Then it shot staight up to 190lbs and I’ve been there ever since. I am eating about 1500 calories a day, mostly from the shakes, mostly liquid. 2 small solid meals, but its not working, weight-loss-wise.
I am having a problem and I don’t really know what is causing it. I’m losing muscle dexterity. Whenever I stand up, my ankle muscles hurt so badly that I can hardly walk. I will have to hobble around for about 10 minutes before I’m ok. (which is weird coming from someone that could ride 150+miles a week on a bike just 6 months ago). And my hands, it’s strange. I spent 1.5 months with them going numb to the point of severe pain almost all day & night long.
It got so bad 2 weeks ago I couldn’t stay asleep at night, finally sending me to the Dr. She was clueless as to what it could be and threw a script at me. I never even filled it. 4 days after the Dr visit, the muscles in my right palm swelled and itched very badly. It looked like I had maybe pulled a muscle or fractured my wrist, but there was a hot feeling in it, as well as pain in my hand joints and severe itching.
I bought a wrist brace, thinking maybe it was CTS. Personally, that would be weird, seeing as I’m left-handed. I have since stopped taking the Cytomel & Estrogen. Since then the numbness has eased off considerably.
Now I have to figure out what is causing the muscle problem. I’m wondering if it could be the shakes, the soy protein in them. I swear, I look like I’m 90 years old when I move. I went back over some of my blog posts and feel this is excessive & quick based on how I felt physically a few months ago.
So, I am also going to try to stop the shakes. They’re addictive, in the sense that it is so easy to carry them with you, you can eat anytime-anywhere. But this is crazy. Now not only am I fat, but I can’t move either. And God knows, I ain’t losing any weight. I’m going to try & eat just protein and vegetables, take my vitamins and do light strength workouts.
New Year Revolution – I hate new year resolutions. We promise ourselves to resolve to do something different at the beginning of the new year. Then by valentine’s day we’re beating ourselves up because we are sucky people that can’t even keep promises to ourselves. Never liked this. (Stole the phrase from my daughter).
So, starting in November, right after thanksgiving, it begins. That way, by new year’s I know if I was able to adapt the new behavior into a habit. So, when everyone else is breaking into what ever new habit they think they’re gonna do, I’m 5 weeks in to success with mine.
The question is “Can I walk?” Can I get up every morning and walk for 10 minutes? I did it today. Well, actually I didn’t do the walk until 3pm this afternoon, but I walked – for 20 minutes. So for today I know, I can do it.
This morning I cooked. Chicken. Mushrooms. Onions. Brussel sprouts. Cauliflower. Zucchini. Made 12 containers of mixed food with 2 ounces of chicken each. The containers hold 9 ounces each. I add the chicken plus 6 ounces of veggies and liquid. There is 70 calories in 2 ounces of chicken, along with 11 grams of protein. There are approximately 60 calories in 6 ounces of vegetables and water, with approximately 6-10 grams of carbohydrates. That puts each container approximately around 130 calories.
Pop them in the freezer and I can eat anywhere there is a microwave. I’m also looking into canned meats. I have to find something I can utilize while on the go. I was thinking the canned chicken, but it has modified food starch, which is probably potato starch. They add potato starch to everything as a preservative. If you’re eliminating potatoes from your diet, this will muck it up.
Maybe canned oysters. I’m concerned because the calorie count for 3.75 ounces is 170, but they are good with low calorie hot sauce. Hard boiled eggs, but I never know how long they will last outside the fridge. I keep those frozen packs in my lunch box, but am always unsure.
I would like to begin really doing the workouts on the blog. I did them a few days a while back and my muscles reacted poorly to it, so I stopped. Well, we’ll see how all this goes, day by day…
179lbs.
150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam – 10mcg liothyronine.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg. Omega-3 fatty acids – 2240mg. EPA – 1360mg. DHA – 680mg.
2 EAS cafe shake-220cal. 1 egg-97cal.
8 17oz bottles water.
?
I didn’t go to the fat Dr. I also cancelled on the ride at the last minute. Aviodance is a wonderful coping skill. Not! We even found a way to not ride on Sunday. Still very anxious, very tired. I went for a bone density scan Monday & used the meditation mp3 on my phone to stay calm & relaxed. It worked really well & the test came back normal. This was excellent news. So why am I shrinking? I postulate that I am so tense, all the muscles in my body are compacting me.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation.
PMR is a systematic technique for gaining a deep state of relaxation. When practiced regularly, these techniques are very effective in stress management. PMR is also very helpful for people like me, whose anxiety presents itself in tight muscles. Sometimes I am so tense all the muscles in my arms & hands ache. For the last few days I’ve noticed I’m writing with a super-tight grip and pressing down really hard on the paper. So much so that it’s uncomfortable. Other symptoms that respond well are tension headaches, backaches, jaw tightness and insomnia. If you are troubled by racing thoughts, this will help you slow your mind by relaxing your muscles.
Through continual, regular practice you will experience:
decrease in general anxiety
decrease in anticipatory anxiety
reduction in panic attacks
improved concentration
better sense of control of moods
increased self esteem
increased creativity and spontineity
To be cont…..
178lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam – 10mcg liothyronine.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg. Omega-3 fatty acids – 2240mg. EPA – 1360mg. DHA – 680mg.
2 EAS cafe shake-220cal. 1 egg-97cal.
2 17oz bottles water.
Shoulder Routine?
I have the fat Dr. appt this morning. And we all know how that is going to go… THEY are going to be SO happy & SO excited that I lost 1.5 pounds since last Friday. Oh, my – excitement, excitement, excitement. I’m bothered by their reaction SO much I almost don’t want to go. But I will.
Bianchi Bellisimo
Do you know I have a 50 mile bike ride tomorrow?
I totally forgot and now, here it is.
This is a BIG group ride, maybe 600+ cyclists.
I am very nervous. I’m so tired of being fat.
I’m so tired showing up for these rides fat.
Maybe if I could put a sign on the back of my riding jersey:
“Yes, I know, I’m fat since the last time you saw me. No, really, I’m having hormonal problems. I’m not a lazy fat-ass”.
Would that be weird?
Anyway, my big ‘goal’ for the day is to not cancel at the last minute. I’m trying to figure out the urge to cancel.
I’ve spent the week telling myself that it’s totally ok that I’ve gotten fat. I’m still the same wonderful person that I have always been. But…
but… I guess the down side to being thin and beautiful is that people determine your looks to be your only measurable value. So when you lose that, they can’t figure out where to place you, what to DO with you. And some of them… some of them can be (have been) down-right mean.
Some of them cannot fathom or accept what I am currently going through. A knick in the armor, a flaw. And some of them are happy I am struggling. As if what? We’re finally on a more level playing field? I am not the one who placed me above you. You did that all on your own. Beat someone else up for not feeling good about yourself. It’s not a contest. It never has been. The spoils going to the victor? The only spoils are the love and enjoyment we share from our interaction from one another. Have you forgotten that part?
As I stated before I am using daily pages and the Daily Record of Dysfunctional Thoughts every single day. What I have noticed is that it has enabled me to work more, which is a very good thing. Daily Record of Dysfunctional Thoughts pdf
Relaxation
There are many tools in the book I will be using to manage my anxiety better. The first one is relaxation. Relaxation is a foundational skill in gaining control over your life, whether you suffer from anxiety or are just stressed out by stuff. Not just having a few relaxing moments, but real, true deep relaxation. This causes a real physiological response in your body:
Relax...
decreases heart rate
respiration rate
lowers blood pressure
decreases skeletal muscle tension
lowers metabolic rate & oxygen consumption
decreases analytical thinking
increases skin resistance
increases alpha wave activity in the brain
The above list is the relaxation response from deep relaxation.
There are 10 common methods achieving a state of deep relaxation.
Abdominal Breathing
Breathing directly reflects the level of tension you carry in your body. When tense, you breathe in a shallow, rapid manner that takes place in your chest. I’ve had friends explain that americans do ‘short-breath’ and that is what makes us unhealthy. When relaxed, you breathe from your abdomen – more fully & more deeply. It is difficult to be tense and breathe from your abdomen at the same time.
It is very difficult for me to breathe from my abdomen. When I get anxious, the muscles along the sides of my ribcage tighten out of habit and it becomes difficult for me to breathe at all. So I inhale hard, pulling air into my lungs. But I do it in my chest. I will be having to learn how to relax those muscles so I can do abdominal breathing.
Abdominal Breathing Exercise
1. Note the level of tension you are feeling. Place one hand on your abdomen right beneath your ribcage. This should only take 3-5 minutes.
2. Inhale slowly and deeply through your nose into the ‘bottom’ of your lungs – sending the air down as low as you can get it. If you’re breathing from your abdomen, your hand should actually rise. Your chest should move only slightly while your abdomen expands. In abdominal breathing, the diaphragm (muscle that separates the lung cavity from the abdominal cavity) moves downward. When it does, it causes the muscles surrounding the abdominal cavity to move outward.
3. When you’ve taken a full breath, pause for a moment and then exhale slowly. Exhale fully, allowing your whole body to just relax and let go.
4. Do 10 slow, full abdominal breaths. Try to keep your breathing smooth and regular. Don’t gulp in air or let it out all at once. It will help to slow down your breathing if you slowly count to four on the inhale (1-2-3-4) and then slowly count to four (1-2-3-4) on the exhale. Remember to pause briefly at the end of each inhale. Count from ten down to one, counting backwards one number for each exhalation. The process should go like this:
slow inhale…pause…slow exhale – ten.
slow inhale…pause…slow exhale – nine.
slow inhale…pause…slow exhale – eight.
And so on, down to one. If you start to feel light-headed while practicing abdominal breathing, stop for 15 to 20 seconds and then start again.
5. Extend the exercise if you wish by doing two or three ‘sets’ of abdominal breaths, remembering to count backwards from ten to one for each set, each exhalation counts as one number. FIVE FULL MINUTES of abdominal breathing will have a pronounced effect in bringing you to a state of deep relaxation.
This is a hard exercise for me. I will have to teach myself to breath from my stomach and not my chest. It’s hard because I’m so tense all the time. I am also learning how to do ‘progressive muscle relaxation’, which I will outline on another day. My mission this week is to add the breathing exercises to my daily activities. So breathing exercises, plus the daily pages, plus the dysfunctional thought pages. Along with continually reassuring myself that everything is ok & I don’t need to be anxious right now.
Calming Breath Exercise
The Calming Breath Exercise was adapted from yoga. It is efficient in acheiving a deep state of relaxation quickly.
1. Breathing from your abdomen, inhale through your nose slowly to a count of five (count slowly …one…two…three…four…five…) as you inhale.
2. Pause and hold your breath to a count of five (count slowly …one…two…three…four…five…) holding your breath.
3. Exhale slowly to a count of five (count slowly …one…two…three…four…five…) while exhaling fully and completely.
4. When you’ve exhaled completely, take two breaths in your normal breathing rhythm, the repeat steps 1-3 in the cycle above.
5. Keep up the exercise for at least 3-5 minutes. This should go through at least 10 cycles of ‘in-five, hold-five, out-five. As you continue the exercise, you may notice you can exhale longer than you can inhale. Allow these variations to occur, if they do naturally and just continue with the exercise for up to five minutes. Remember to take two normal breaths between each cycle. If you start to feel light-headed during this exercise, stop for 30 seconds, then begin again.
6. Throughout the exercise, keep your breathing smooth and regualr, without gulping in breaths or breathing out quickly.
7. (optional) Each time you exhale you may want to make a calming statement, like Rlax, Calm, Let Go. Allow your whole body to relax and let go each time you do this. If you keep this up each time you practice, eventually just saying the statement by its self will bring on a mild state of relaxation.
The calming breathing technique can be a potent technique when you feel the first signs of anxiety or stress. Application of what we have learned: Practice the Abdominal Breathing Exercise or Calming Breath Exercise for five minutes every day for at least two weeks. If possible, find a regular time each day to do this so it becomes a habit.
Once you gain some mastery with these exercises, you can use them every time you feel anxious or stressed. By extending your practice of the exercises for a month or longer, you will ‘retrain’ yourself to breath from your abdomen. The more you can shift the center of your breathing from your chest and to your abdomen, the more you will feel relaxed on an ongoing basis.
Serene Blue digitaljames.com
179lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam – 10mcg liothyronine.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg. Omega-3 fatty acids – 2240mg. EPA – 1360mg. DHA – 680mg.
2 EAS cafe shake-220cal. 1 egg-97cal. 4 oz vegetables – 55cal, 1 EAS shake-110cal. 1 egg-97cal. 2 eas shakes-220cal. 2oz chicken- 69cal. box of oysters-170cal. 1 EAS shake-110cal. 1 egg-97cal. TOTAL CALORIES – 1245.
9 17oz bottles water.
Leg Routine?
Excited? I lied. I left for my appointments yesterday feeling somewhat anxious. Within 15 minutes, I was completely terrified. I tried all my new grounding techniques, nada. But it’s not going to work all the time, every time. It was kinda weird that both client meetings yesterday were with current clients that are fairly low maintenance. Usually that doesn’t make me anxious. Maybe it’s because I knew this morning I had to email a new client with a $1.2M home. And that tomorrow I have an inspection with another owner of a 1.5M home. Rich people make me nervous. They can afford to be unreasonable.
I managed to get through the day. Everything took longer, but since my schedule is not heavy, it was ok. Had some scary moments, but overall I did it. Finished work at 9:30pm last night. My struggle is that so much of what I do with my clients involves easing their stress, it’s hard to do it when I’m jumping out of my skin all nervous.
TO THE BOOK:
Daily Pages - example of daily pages pdf – I am using them. I am not doing all the stuff on them in a timely and organized way, but for now I only have to use them and work towards ‘better’. I am doing that.
Overflow Pages – Daily Schedule Overflow Activities pdf – these are helpful for listing all the crazy miscellaneous stuff I do. Over time I’ll be able to use these to modify my daily pages so they are more effective.
Daily Record of Dysfunctional Thoughts pages – Daily Record of Dysfunctional Thoughts pdf - I am using them, though I don’t understand them 100% yet.
Taking responsibility – in a context of support. What is MY responsibility in what is going on in my life? Yes, the anxiety is caused by something outside of my self. But I am the one who determines HOW it affects my life. I did not cause the circumstances that lead me to be anxious. But I am able to take steps to improve my quality of life and reduce my anxiety. While I am not to blame for it’s existence, I am responsible for the fact that I suffer from anxiety.
Motivation – overcoming secondary gains. Ever felt really motivated to do something? Ever lose the momentum in doing that thing? Ever been at a loss as to why you couldn’t stay motivated? Secondary gains can sometimes be a stumbling block in your life. A secondary gain is something that consciously or subconsciously rewards you for holding on to an unhealthy behavior.
Like with eating bad carbs. Wanting to lose weight lead you to determine you would remove bad carbs from your diet. If you’re finding it hard, it could be that the sugar in the carb is causing a momentary jolt to your blood glucose, causing you to momentarily feel better. That would be a secondary gain working against you.
Another possible secondary gain could be coming from your significant other. Maybe they’ve become comfortable with your being overweight. Maybe, inside, it gives them a sense of security that you won’t leave them for someone else. So they sabotage your weight-loss efforts. I have to figure out if I am having problems with possible secondary gains that could lock me into changing my behaviors about anxiety. Have to be able to answer this question: What payoffs am I getting for staying this way?
Suffering can be a great motivator. So great, in fact, that many people HAVE to suffer before they are able to break out of an unhealthy behavior. When motivation wanes, it’s important to raise the question: What is the payoff for avoiding change? (I gotta tell you, I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out the payoff for gaining weight for me, I still can’t figure it out.)
Making a commitment to myself to follow through. This is something I am not good at. Follow-through. Haven’t been able to figure it out yet. I am a great starter. If you need to get some amazing thing started, I am your girl. But following through has always been difficult. It’s odd, it’s not because I don’t want to follow through… it feels like it gets too difficult.
I’m curious how much of it has to do with anxiety. Usually I just beat myself up with the “you’re just too lazy” bat, but deep down inside, I know that isn’t right. I may be a lot of things, lazy just isn’t one of them. I’ve even run it through a reality check.
There are a lot of things I am committed to. Mr. Wonderful, I am not going to let him treat me badly, but I’m in this marriage 100%. He just makes me feel unsafe. The bike club, I’ve done this for over 10 years now & deep down inside I enjoy it a great deal. I’m just terrified of the people. So, yeah, it is hard sometimes. But I’m there, week in and week out. My kids, omg, they drive me crazy sometimes, but they are everything to me. I would give up my life for them. Even when they get mad and quit talking to me.
Even my business. I’ve been in some sort of real estate related work almost all my adult life. Now, I’m convinced that I totally suck at my job and I’m terrified of my clients, but that hasn’t stopped me. If I wanted my life to be easier, I’d work at McDonald’s. What a no-stress kinda life that would be. No responsibility for bringing in new business, no marketing, no image-building, no business expansion. Just show up, work your shift, check your job at the door on the way out. But here I am, struggling through every day, because no matter how scared I am, this is what I love. And what about my life? I’m committed to that. I”m still here. Even when things got bad, I never checked out. I never gave up. So why is it so difficult for me to follow through?
Willingness to take risks. A dear friend of mine told me many years ago that I was rigid. I totally disagreed with her, but because I know she loves me a great deal, I started to look to see if I could see what she saw. Sure enough, I am rigid. I’ve been working on that ever since and am the first to admit it.
To overcome my anxiety, I am going to have to be willing to experiment with new ways of thinking, feeling and acting that may be unfamiliar to me at first. It will also mean giving up some of the hidden payoffs for not changing.
Defining and visualizing my goals for recovery:
What are the most important positive changes I want to make in my life?
I want to stop being afraid. I want to feel good about myself. I want to feel that some people in the world love me and look up to me. I want to be in a place where I can stop that little voice inside my head from beating the shit out of me. I want to go back to living my amazing life.
1. Free from anxieties.
2. Positive self esteem.
3. Self-nurturing.
What would a complete recovery from my present condition look like?
I’ve covered that here.
Specifically, how will I think, feel and act in my work, my relationships with others and my relationship with me once I’ve recovered?
Again, I’ve covered that here.
What new opportunities will I take advantage of once I’ve fully recovered?
Along with enjoying the amazing life I already have, I will be able to expand my business, launch my ministry and hopefully have Mr. Wonderful come work with our company so he can quit his overly demanding job.
179lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam – 10mcg liothyronine.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg. Omega-3 fatty acids – 2240mg. EPA – 1360mg. DHA – 680mg.
2 EAS cafe shake-220cal. 1 egg-97cal. 1 EAS shakes-110cal. 4oz vegetables-55cal. 1 EAS cafe shake – 110cal. 1 EAS cafe shake-110cal. TOTAL CALORIES 702.
4 17oz bottle water.
Chest routine set 1 & 2 & 3. 7 exercises- 25 reps each. (yea for me, i did it today!!!)
Reboot the system. Start again. Baby steps. Slow & methodical. Work the list.
Today I start back with the HCG. It was working, but I got so distracted by all the head-shrinker bullshit that I got off track. I’m pissed about this (see the potty-mouth language?). The folks at the Fat Dr were really cool about it. I did the HCG diet for 15 days, then stopped. They are going to let me buy another vial of HCG for $130. I decide whether to take the shots on the weekends or not. I ride Saturday & Sunday, and can have 1000-1300 calories on those days, my choice. During the week, I will do my weight training in a relaxed manner, light weights. Calories between 500-750. Watch myself all week and see how I feel. Then determine if the weight training can be done on the diet. (it figures I would find the ONE diet that doesn’t ALLOW exercise.)
Saturday I did a very easy 10 mile bike ride. Sunday I did a very hard bike ride. 22 miles at a pace of 15.4amph. That’s my normal pace. 15-16 average miles per hour. It burned a lot of calories. By the end of the day, I had probably eaten about 1600 calories, but I am ok with that. I didn’t give in to cravings, I fed my body. As I said, I rode hard. Probably burned 1300 calories. After the ride, we scrubbed sails for 1 hour. Later we sailed for 3 hours. That burned additional calories.
Today I am at work because it is Monday, a work day. This is good. I haven’t really been ‘at work’ for over 2 months. I came up with ‘Daily Schedule’ pages. Scheduling blocking to get my brain back on track. All I have to do every day is what is on the page. If I get into ‘fear-lockdown’, all I have to do is write about it on my special “Daily Record Of Dysfunctional Thoughts” page.
(situation) Basically it has me describe the uncomfortable or anxious event (usually my brain-fog when I try to work).
My thoughts or memories, recollection leading up to the unpleasant emotion.
(emotion) Then describe emotions.
Rate degree of emotion from 1-100.
(automatic thoughts) Then I write the automatic thoughts that came immediately before the emotion.
Rate the degree in which I believe the automatic thought from 1-100.
(rational response) Then I write a rational response to the automatic thought.
Rate the belief in the rational response from 1-100.
(outcome) After that, I rerate the belief in the initial automatic thought from 1-100.
Lastly, I specify my emotion after the automatic thought & rational response.
Rate my emotions at that point, from 1-100.
Initially, I only have to try and then reward myself verbally for doing any of it. That may sound weird to you, it does to me. I am overwhelmed with the desire to beat myself up because I am not functioning at 100%. But the truth is, I only have to do what ‘has to’ be done today. I don’t have to be at 100% today. One of the things we are working on is a problem with perfectionism. I haven’t worked well in 2 months. Another few weeks isn’t going to be the end of the world. Plus I am doing a lot of work on recovery. I have to remember to give myself credit for that.
I have a very long, difficult meeting with clients this afternoon. I am already feeling anxious. I will be ok because I know both of these clients already. I have to show some houses. Piece of cake. I have to take a bunch of pictures and fill out a form I’ve filled out 100 before. Piece of cake. I will do just fine. Now, I am going to stop blogging and send some emails. Then prepare for my meetings.
I’m excited.
180lbs.
150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam – 10mcg liothyronine.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg.
2 EAS cafe shake-220cal. DID NOT TRACK FOOD.
3 17oz bottle water.
Start again. Don’t worry about the time lost, just start again.
I think we’re all in agreement that medication is not a first line of defense against life-long anxiety. As I stated in my last post, I am suffering from ‘cumulative stress’. Something is also wrong with my thyroid. That part will take a while. I went to the Endro Dr and they took 4 vials of blood so they could run a billion tests.
Yesterday was the third meeting with my psychologist. She wants to work with me through this book. I immediately bought it on my kindle, and then bought a real copy because it is so filled with wonderful information that my husband wants to work through it as well. What a guy!!
Chapter three discusses recovery. A comprehensive recovery plan of action.
Physical
Emotional
Behavioral
Mental
Interpersonal
Whole Self
Existential-Spiritual
My doctors will be checking out the physical.
Emotionally many things are working against me. Suppression of feelings, understanding how I feel, setting up an environment to express my feeling and learning to effectively communicate my feelings to those around me will be steps I will take to ease my burden.
Behavioral is a huge one for me. Sometime in June, I had a mental breakdown. I had stacked as much in my brain as I could and it crashed. Because I have extremely strong survival skills, everything in my being tried to compensate for the crash. And then one day, my brain stopped.
That was not the problem, it was the symptom. The problem was I have not effectively build myself a safe life. My brain is not able to carry the load any more with my current set up. So we are making some ‘lifestyle’ changes. This is so much more refreshing than taking medication that will cause a life-threatening skin rash, don’t you think?
This is the basis for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, which when I go over my initial posts, is what I thought I needed in the first place. Isolate behaviors that are less healthy & remove. Replace with behaviors that fill your needs and make you healthy. That small, soft voice. We all have one. Listen to yours more often. Instead of listening to mine, I started avoiding things. Avoidance is the main thing that enables anxiety to persist.
Mental is another place that will be a big part of my recovery. My ‘self-talk’ is constant & unrelenting. It’s also not very nice to me. And I really like me, so it will have to change and become more nurturing. I will be learning how to recognize and counter my destructive thinking. I will also be learning about ‘mistaken beliefs’ so I can find the ones that influence my thinking and remove them.
Interpersonal deals with dealing with others in an effective & healthy manner. Fortunately for me, Mr. Wonderful understands that he showed up for this marriage with a lot of baggage. He is able to see that I wasn’t the only one. We are both pretty excited about being able to become healthier, happier people. Which is good, it will be much cheaper and easier for him to make personal changes with me than to go back into the dating world again. I’m glad he gets this. It was not a negotiable point.
Inner-Child Present
Whole Self deals with self-esteem. Deep-seated feelings of insecurity and inadequacies which show up as anxiety. Building a relationship with our inner-child. My psychologist doesn’t know it yet, but I have a very active relationship with my inner child. I have just not been being a good parent to her. I give her way too much freedom and control. We’ll have to find a way to live in harmony together. Ha! I bought her a gift, see?
Existential & Spiritual is something I’m already doing well. Although I have lost my sense of direction with it. We used to do street ministry, now we are trying to launch an on-line ministry. I haven’t had the strength to get it going. But I have faith that as I become healthier, it will take off, just like everything else in my life does.
I am a strong ‘word-based’ believer in God. This is an area that Mr. Wonderful will be working on. He is a surface believer, a ‘church-gigger’. Before we met he thought quite highly of himself, going to church all the time, feeling…holy. The fact that he wasn’t leading his family in a Godly way was overshadowed by his perfect church attendance. Yeah, he had sin in his life, but nobody could see it so it wasn’t hurting anyone.
Riiggghhhht…
I place way more importance on building a strong relationship with God than going to church on Sunday. Not that church isn’t a wonderful thing, but it needs to be kept in perspective. Mr. Wonderful’s perspective was that so long as the people at church thought he was great, nothing else mattered. It eclipsed his need to have a personal relationship with God. And hold himself accountable. He has such a strong spirit. I’m interested to see where that takes him.
Here are my necessary ingredients to build my recovery program:
1. Taking responsibility – in a context of support.
2. Motivation – overcoming secondary gains.
3. Making a commitment to myself to follow through.
4. Willingness to take risks.
5. Defining and visualizing my goals for recovery.
I’m excited.
176lbs.
150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam - 10mcg liothyronine.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg.
2 EAS cafe shake-220cal. DID NOT TRACK FOOD.
3 17oz bottle water.
Talk about a complete pendulum swing. I don’t know if this will be as exciting as the drama involved with Bipolar Disorder, however, we do have a new diagnosis: Cumulative Stress.
Artist - Jim Warren
[Cumulative stress results from an accumulation of various stress factors such as a heavy workload, poor communications, the frustration of not being able to meet the others needs, having to cope with situations in which you feel powerless, lack of basic comforts, and inability to rest or relax.
Under normal circumstances, it can be monitored by adequate personal and team stress management, but in some stressful situations such as disasters, cumulative stress can escalate quickly and develop into professional exhaustion known as "burn out".]
Oh really? Professional exhaustion known as ‘burn-out’????
“Stress can be a major contributor to an anxiety or panic condition or the trigger that will start anxiety disorders. For many people who have personalities that are predisposed to anxiety, stressful events or the accumulation of stressful events over a relatively short period of time can lead to anxiety symptoms.”
So, if I’m burned out, that might be an explanation of my need to sit at my computer playing with my blogs while my business goes to hell??? What? No fancy label, no deadly medications?
Cognitive symptoms - Difficulty making decisions, Limited attention span, Disorientation, decreased level of awareness, Memory problems, Distressing dreams.
Emotional - Crying spells, Denial/Feeling overwhelmed, Anxiety/irritability, Fear/Anger, Guilt, Grief, Hopelessness, Helplessness, Emotional/Panic reactions.
Artist - Andrew Gonzalez
Behavioral – Increased smoking, increased alcohol consumption, Changes in eating habits, Withdrawal, Under/over caring, Delayed responses, Feelings triggered by odors.
Exhaustion - As stress continues, coping mechanisms are exhausted. Adaptive resources utilized, Resistance to all stressors declines, Increased susceptibility to physical and psychological ailments, Rest and recovery are needed. I’ve underlined the things that are affecting me.
In November of last year, we started working on expanding my business. At that same time, I noticed I was having trouble being creative & finishing tasks. Due to a change in our insurance, I postponed seeking counseling. January & February were unusually busy months for the business. I buckled down, knowing there would be a break soon.
March & April brought 3 very high maintenance clients. Usually I don’t take on high maintenance clients, but the 3 of them slipped by me without my noticing. I have more than enough business so I turn down clients that are overly stressed, emotionally abusive or difficult and rigid. I own the business, I get to choose. I maintain control over my environment, normally.
May & June saw me being a trooper, trudging along, problem clients acting up in all sorts of ways. Being a super problem solver, I was right on top of their every move. Until I stopped.
Right before the bupropion, excessively tired. That’s why I asked for it. It took me right to the point of non-functioning.
Artist - Vladamir Kush
Looking back, it was good that happened. I was so heavily embedded in ‘staying on top of things’, I may not have stopped, given the chance.
So, this is similar to a physical injury that you ignore and use anyway. At the on-set of the initial injury, rest and rehab would have taken a relatively short time and you would have gotten to a stronger place. But when you ignore an injury and continue use, the damage takes longer to recover from.
So, that is where I find myself. I will be learning to meditate. I will limit my work load. I will hire outside assistance with creative tasks. I will ride with the bike club only if they keep it non-stressful. I will sail. I will do my photography. I will sing…
When I am feeling stronger, Mr. Wonderful and I will start to work on resolutions to our difficulties. And he will immediately STOP blaming me for his inadequacies.
I’ve gotta tell you, I feel like I’ve taken medicine. I am able to breathe. The fog is lifting. I’m… happy.
This is the things head-shrinker said would happen with the medication. But this doesn’t have any life-threatening side effects.
`
What is the “fight or flight response?”
This fundamental physiologic response forms the foundation of modern day stress medicine. The “fight or flight response” is our body’s primitive, automatic, inborn response that prepares the body to “fight” or “flee” from perceived attack, harm or threat to our survival.
What can we do to reduce our stress and turn down the activity of our fight or flight response?
The fight or flight response represents a genetically hard-wired early warning system—designed to alert us to external environmental threats that pose a danger to our physical survival. Because survival is the supreme goal, the system is highly sensitive, set to register extremely minute levels of potential danger.
As such, the fight or flight response not only warns us of real external danger but also of the mere perception of danger. This understanding gives us two powerful tools for reducing our stress.
They are:
1) Changing our external environment (our “reality”). This includes any action we take that helps make the environment we live in safer.
Physical safety means getting out of toxic, noisy or hostile environments.
Emotional safety means surrounding ourselves with friends and people who genuinely care for us, learning better communication skills, time management skills, getting out of toxic jobs and hurtful relationships.
Spiritual safety means creating a life surrounded with a sense of purpose, a relationship with a higher power and a resolve to release deeply held feelings of shame, worthlessness and excessive guilt.
2) Changing our perceptions of reality. This includes any technique whereby we seek to change our mental perspectives, our attitudes, our beliefs and our emotional reactions to the events that happen to us. Many of these techniques are:
cognitive restructuring
voice dialogue therapy
inner child work
learning not to take things personally
affirmations
self-parenting
Changing our perceptions of reality is best illustrated by the proverbial saying, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Without actually changing our reality, we can altered our perception of reality—viewing the difficulties of life as events that make us stronger and more loving. In the Buddhist tradition, this is referred to as developing a “supple mind.”
Physical exercise can also turn down the activity of an overactive fight or flight response.
Perhaps the simplest, best way to turn down the activity of our fight or flight response is by physical exercise. Remember that the natural conclusion of fight or flight is vigorous physical activity. When we exercise, we metabolize excessive stress hormones—restoring our body and mind to a calmer, more relaxed state.
For the purpose of stress reduction and counteracting the fight or flight response, we do not need to exercise for 30 to 40 minutes. Any form of activity where we “work up a sweat” for five minutes will effectively metabolize off—and prevent the excessive buildup of—stress hormones.
Get down and do 50 pushups, 50 sit-ups, jumping jacks, jump rope, run in place, run up and down the stairs, whatever. By exercising to the point of sweating, we effectively counteract the ill effects of the fight of flight response, drawing it to its natural conclusion.
Frequent repetitions of short exercise are easy to fit into our busy schedules. For full cardiovascular fitness, longer periods of exercise do have additional benefits, but for the purpose of stress reduction, mini-exercise sessions are practical, effective and beneficial.
Exercise increases our natural endorphins, which help us to feel better. When we feel good, our thoughts are clearer, our positive beliefs are more accessible and our perceptions are more open. When we feel tired and physically run down, we tend to focus on what’s not working in our lives—similar to a cranky child needing a nap. It is difficult to be, feel or think positive when we are exhausted, sleep deprived or physically out of condition.
What is mind chatter?
If we could read the owners manual for the mind, we would find a full chapter on what is called “mind chatter.” Mind chatter is the endless, restless stream of incomplete thoughts, anxieties and self-talk which constantly pulses through our minds. In order to survive, our mind is always “on”—searching for possible threats, dangers, solutions and explanations. This is called our “strategic mind.”
The strategic mind is always “on”—scanning both our inner and outer world for possible threats to our well-being—either real or imagined. This constant vigilance of the mind not only distracts us with excessive worry but can also trigger the activation of our fight or flight response.
Sometimes, because of the mind’s incessant chatter and worry, we even begin to anticipate dangers or threats that don’t really exist. This is what the soulful and gentle author Joan Borysenko, Ph.D. (Minding The Body, Mending The Mind) refers to as becoming an “advanced worrier.”
This condition is described brilliantly by Mark Twain who said “I’ve experienced many terrible things in my life, a few of which actually happened.” Zig Ziglar, the great motivational speaker, says “Worry is a misuse of the imagination.”
Underneath all the mind chatter and fight or flight anxiety lies a quiet place called our “inner voice”, the “observer” or the “witness.” The “inner voice” is what Walter Cannon, M.D., calls “the wisdom of the body.”
This quiet place allows us to move beyond our fears, beyond our anxieties and beyond our strategic mind—into a clearer understanding and knowing of what is true and loving. A quiet mind calms our overactive physiology, creating a sequence of physiologic and biochemical changes that improve our physical health.
The simplest, most exquisite way I know of to quiet the mind is by eliciting what is called “The Relaxation Response. “
176lbs.
150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg. Thyroid Booster.
2 EAS cafe shake-220cal. DID NOT TRACK FOOD.
3 17oz bottle water.
I’m still feeling better, but it’s an anxious day. Today I meet with my new therapist. It is hard because I don’t know how to explain what took place with the last one. Stu, your rational comments to my posts have been very grounding. That and your prayers have really filled the gap. Thank you, my friend.
I have gone over it enough to know she was not effective in her approach with me. There is a good possibility she has never worked with someone that has C-PTSD. Her demand that I accept her diagnosis of bipolar was counter-productive to my goal of removing the obstacle to getting back to work. I’m a little familiar with my life struggles. I know what I’ve gone through, I know where I am at. I know of the amazing things I have accomplished.
That is not a grandiose statement. If you & I run a 400 meter dash, but I start 300 meters behind where you start, and manage to tie you… that’s quite an accomplishment. That kinda what this is like, I just got started on this thing called life a little bit behind the rest of you. But look at me, I’ve managed to catch up with everyone. Pretty cool, eh?
And yet, I am trying hard to take into account that she is a college-educated, trained professional. What if she’s right, what if I am only willing to accept what I am comfortable with. This is really hard. I am amazed at the changes in the mental health field in the last 20 years. Because of a difficult childhood, I’ve engaged in therapy throughout my life. 15 years ago, ADD was the big thing. That and depression. Everyone was either ADD or depressed. It’s gotten worse. Used to be a person was just shy, now there’s over 10 classifications for anxiety disorder. I liken them to IPhone. Everywhere you look, every head-shrinker is the same. No matter what your struggle, they have an app (med) for that!
It makes it difficult for those of us that actually have anxiety disorders to get effective treatment. When you are anxious meeting new people, it’s not Social Anxiety Disorder, it’s called being shy. When you are too anxious to leave your house for a week, then you start moving towards a disorder. I am about 6 months into being in constant fight-or-flight. I’m exhausted. Usually when I have too much stress and work too many hours, I can make daily changes, take a break and stay functioning. This time, it got away from me.
The other problem is a term called “off label”. Off Label means that the FDA has not approved the drug for use for other disorders, but the manufacturer and doctors utilize it for other disorders. That’s how I went in with a mild depression and got prescribed an antipsychotic. To me it’s like having heart burn and having the doctor want to perform heart surgery. Littler over-kill, don’t you think?
Well, I will do with this situation what I do with other overwhelming situations. I will put it in God’s hands. Everything happens for a reason, whether I understand it or not. Even when bad things happen, God can turn anything to good. I will be fine…
176lbs.
150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg. Thyroid Booster.
2 EAS cafe shake-220cal. DID NOT TRACK FOOD.
3 17oz bottle water.
All I have to say today is I am feeling much better… don’t know why.
So, I’m not weighing myself today. I didn’t go to my fat Dr appointment either. I have stopped taking the medicine Buspar. It wasn’t making me less anxious, in fact I’ve been anxious and crying for days. I’m so distracted from the craziness of the head-shrinking incident, I haven’t been doing my HCG diet properly. I was down to 173lbs, now I’m back up around 180lbs. I spent a lot of money doing this diet, I need to refocus.
I’m really excited. Next Friday, I finally have an appointment with an endocrinologist. Hormone level testing!!!! I’ve waited over 10 yrs. And I found a new therapist. I have ground rules. Either she can provide behavioral & talk therapy WITHOUT medication or I will not see her. Period. I am not ‘treatment-resistant’. I am “dangerous-unnecessary-antipsychotic-drug-treatment-resistant”. Bear in mind, I have tried using several of those medications. They never made me feel ‘better’. Therapy always made me feel better.
I am angry. I only needed a few weeks of actual therapy to get on track. Once you start removing some of your irrational fears, and making sound decisions that bring successful results, it kind of snowballs. You start with a few hours a day of doing action-activity and seeing positive results. Each day you add to the hours that you do that. Over time, you are back to working full time and the anxiety is under control.
Dr. Phil (don’t you just love him) says that the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. So, the best indicator of future success is past success. This plan has always been successful for me. I’m sticking with it.
Relief from the anxiety:
1. Don’t Give in to It
Anxiety like this is usually the equivalent of a mental temper tantrum. Your mind wants your attention, in a way that’s not healthy. It can’t be reasoned with, so it needs to be ignored in its outburst and put in a safe place so it can calm down. Kinda like metal time out.
2. Start Taking Deep Breaths
Take a deep breath in and release it as slowly as you can. And repeat. This tells your body that you are in control. You’ve noticed a problem and you’re dealing with it. No need for any stress hormones to get involved, everything is under control.
3. Soothing, guided sound
Either you have a soothing prayer, mantra, or affirmation that you know consistently works for you in helping you to feel calm, or positive – use it now!
Starting repeating it in your mind (or out loud, if you prefer) with care and attention. Keep taking slow deep breaths and repeat your prayer / mantra / affirmation slowly too. Make it a meditation. Become absorbed. This is the perfect antidote to the turmoil your mind is trying to throw up.
Breath and repeat. Breath and repeat. If your mind wanders to darker thoughts, bring it back. Don’t get into the details. Take a deep breath and bring your full attention back to your chosen words of calm.
If you don’t yet have a favorite invocation for calm, find a guided relaxation exercise for your iPod or MP3 player. If anxiety strikes, simply click play and follow along as you are guided into a calmer state.
Which ever you choose, you need to pick one quickly and stick with it.
So the next time your mind wants to throw a tantrum:
Don’t Give into It. Take slow, deep breaths, and pull out your chosen calming technique. Be careful to give it your full attention, treat it with respect and care and you will feel calmer in minutes.
Later, remember to acknowledge your victory, so you can grow your confidence in coping with anxiety and know what action to take the next time you hit a rough patch.
180lbs.
150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam. 25mg – buspar.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg. Thyroid Booster.
2 EAS cafe shake-220cal. Another day of so much bad food I can’t even list it here. Enough sugar to survive the events of yesterday…
3 17oz bottle water.
So many people I have connected with through this blog are on a weight-loss journey. I know coming here and reading this must seem crazy. I wanted to blog about my weight-loss struggle. Life stepped in. Sorry.
I am having a weight loss problem. It’s kind of interesting, last year as I blogged about weight loss trouble, I was clueless to how many people were struggling. Struggling due to poor scientific studies and deceptive marketing. Struggling because the Government’s Food Pyramid was causing obesity. Struggling because when they go to their doctors, they cannot get a proper diagnosis of thyroid, hormones, metabolism or food allergies that may be causing their weight loss struggle.
There is little good information out there. From what I have read, I would send BIG KUDOS to the primal people. They have taken their lives and their
health into their own hands and appear to be making great headway in their quest to live healthy, energetic lives. From what I can see in the blogosphere, more so than most.
For me it’s been like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. In an attempt to find out what is causing the inability to lose weight, a mild depression set in. I had my doctor prescribe bupropion to ease the depression. I didn’t have a good reaction. The depression got much worse. So much so that I spent weeks not being able to do anything. It started to feel a little crazy.
Being the proactive person that I am, I came up with a viable solution. I’ll just get some short-term counseling. Not an easy thing, being scarred by abuse as a child, I am fodder for any head shrink or counselor that’s looking to upgrade their Lexus. I knew that the head-shrinkers are hurting for real clients, but I didn’t realize they had pulled the counselors into their posse. Used to be it was safe to go to a therapist because they couldn’t prescribe meds, so had to rely on actual therapy.
True mental illness is only present in 10%-15% of the population. Are you aware that between 50%-60% of the population is currently being treated for Mental Illness. Did you know they are considering making Obesity a Mental Illness. You are not as far away from me as you think. Ah, but I digress…
It is so fun!!! Here is our lastest solution: Lamictal – use the link to get detailed information, my concern was it has a black box warning about life threatening skin reactions, including Stevens-Johnson Syndrome and Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis. Did you see that? Life Threatening skin reaction.
You should have seen the head-shrinker yesterday talk about the side effect. In her calm soothing voice, soft sweet smile on her face. ”Well, there is a slight possibility of a side effect that some people are concerned about. But if you get a rash while on the medicine, just call and come right in, you don’t even need to wait for an appointment.” I took my husband with me yesterday. It was his first visit to a head shrinker. He was “enlightened”.
Now, remember our first solution? Seroquel – it is marketed as one of the most sedating of all antipsychotics. Definitely something you want to give someone that is unable to do anything already. Yeah.
Now, call me crazy but I’m only suffering from a slight depression. Why would a doctor prescribe strong ‘anti-psychotic’ and ‘mood-stabilizing’
drugs that cause a life-threatening skin rash or diabetes?????
I know you’re reading this and thinking “what is wrong with this woman” & “why doesn’t she just go get help”?? Problem is, I went to go get help, from professionals, like I thought was right. See how out-of-control this situation is? I just need a therapist that does cognitive behavioral therapy. We just needed to walk through some irrational fears that have resurfaced from childhood. ”Yes, Gia, you are very skilled at your job and you’re clients are helped by your assistance. Everything is ok.” Not drugs that cause serious illnesses.
Where it becomes difficult is you get so turned around, you start to think there must BE something wrong with you. These are professionals, right? Who am I to question them? What kind of demented control-freak am I?
They accused me of ‘self-diagnosing’. Told me that I was SO mentally unstable that I was practically out of control. When I got frustrated, as any sane person would do in the face of such illogical lunacy, I was told I was having a ‘manic episode’.
And somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of my mind, I started to question myself. Well, what if I am mentally ill? Mentally ill people don’t know they are mentally ill. So, of course I would claim to be sane, right? So, isn’t that proof right there that I am mentally ill?
Where do I go from here?
178lbs.
150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam. 20mg – buspar.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg. Thyroid Booster.
2 EAS cafe shake-220cal. 1 egg-97cal. So much bad food I can’t even list it here. Enough sugar to survive the events of yesterday…
3 17oz bottle water.
Abs/Spine Routine?
I am one of the few people I know that are so screwed up I can even piss off my therapist. Yesterday was my counseling session. It didn’t go well. She fired me.
It’s kinda like having the rug torn from beneath you. I’m staggering right now, trying to find sure footing. Like I’m running through a pitch-dark room, trying not to bump into things. Therapy was that light at the end of the tunnel. She just turned it off. It’s totally dark. I’m standing here trying to figure out what to do.
Technically, I should turn around and grope my way carefully to the door I came in and look for another doorway. (another therapist) But I am concerned about all the time that I have wasted. I just spent 6 weeks in therapy, laying a foundation of who I am, what my life experience is and what I am struggling with.
It’s hard to do that. To go in and discuss things no one else knows about. Your deepest, darkest fears… your failures. I did the work. I went in every week, I talked about the real stuff, no matter how embarrassed I felt. I didn’t fluff, I didn’t only show the good stuff. I talked about real things.
My thought is she didn’t do her job. I hesitate to say that because I consider myself responsible. It’s not about blaming others, it’s about focusing on what YOU do. But I showed up every week. I did the things she asked of me.
She felt it important that I see the head-shrinker. I did. The head-shrinker put me on medication. I take it, every day. I delayed the start of the medication by a week because I didn’t want to take it during the same week I started the HCG hormone shots. In case either of them gave me a bad reaction, I wanted to be able to see which one it was.
That seems reasonable to me. I also called and rescheduled the meeting with the head-shrinker to today so I would be 2 weeks on the meds at my next meeting with her. This medication takes 3-4 weeks to begin to start working. Again, seems reasonable to me. She decided that made me ‘TREATMENT-RESISTANT’.
At one point she said I was ‘all over the place’. She wanted to know what I wanted to get out of counseling. She asked me to provide something that would show her what it would look like when we got done with the counseling. I posted it here. It is 2 pages. I did exactly what she asked. She briefly skimmed over it, (her words). We never used it or went over it in session. That disappointed me. I took the time to write it. I think it was a good starting point. She can’t even remember what is on it.
She spends time talking about ‘what’ we are going to do, without ever actually doing it. Yesterday seemed like a good example of the problem. I don’t do small-talk well. I am very shy and small talk is difficult for me. I prefer more ‘purpose-driven’ conversations. I can talk at length about why real estate is a much better investment than stocks, long term. I can go on for hours explaining God’s plan, as laid out in the bible, satan’s role, salvation, the failings of christianity. All of it. If there is a reason for me to speak, I do ok.
But just to chit-chat and respond to rhetorical questions like ‘How are you’? ’Did you see House last night, wasn’t that funny?’ I struggle. It’s just the way I am.
So we started the session as usual. I’m anxious. Keep in mind, I have an anxiety problem already. Compound that with therapy being hard for me because I’ve had a troubled childhood & it’s difficult for me to show up and discuss it. Add to the mix the fact that I am unable to do my job as of the very first week before therapy began. (uh, that’s why I am in therapy, duh) There is a clock right in front of me as we are talking. I only have 45 minutes.
I have mentally blocked off 10 minute sections of our time. the first 10 minutes can be wasted on small talk, her questions and getting back to where we left off the previous week. That only leaves us 35 minutes. We need 15 minutes at the end to discuss what I may have learned, (the new thoughts or behaviors) and give me instruction on what I should spend the next 7 days doing differently to incorporate the new thinking and behaviors.
That only leaves 20 minutes for her to explore my fears and reactions to the irrational thinking I am currently buried in. 20 minutes for me to talk about my irrational fears and have her help me see them as irrational & help me replace them with more rational thoughts. I tend to be long-winded, that doesn’t leave us a lot of time.
I’m trying to follow her lead. All she wants to do is small talk. That leaves me with nothing to say. So, yesterday she asked how I felt. I told her I was ok, considering, and tried to leave it at that. She asked how the meds were working. I told her I’m still anxious, only in a different way, and left it at that.
She decided she needed me to expound on that. I looked at the clock and told her I had an appointment with the head-shrinker tomorrow & would discuss it with the head-shrinker then. I told her I didn’t want to waste any time in here discussing what I will discuss with the head-shrinker, she could just find out about that directly with the head-shrinker at another time. I wanted to talk about my fears and my irrational thinking.
But, oh no, instead we had to do a wasteful dissertation about the meds and the importance of the meds, she seems unsure as to whether I was actually taking the meds, blah, blah, blah. Yes. I AM taking the meds. I tried to bring her back to my main point. I am not going to spend my entire life on medication. The medications are not really that effective. The behavioral therapy will be a long-term aid.
I have yet to take any medicine that actually removed my fears and put me in a place where I was able to function every day effectively. They do make me feel different. Groggy, tired, indifferent. Yes, they do modify how I feel. But not in a way that enables me to get up every day and want to do my job, or be involved with my hobbies or my life. So, how effective are they, really?
Behavioral therapy? OMG, it has saved my life. Based on what I struggled with as a child, it was what I learned in behavioral therapy that enabled me to overcome the death of 4 primary care-takers by the time I was 8 yrs old. It is what enabled me to ‘manage’ the damage done surviving 7 years of physical and emotional abuse dished out by my only surviving caretaker, my step-mother.
I need for these therapists & head-shrinking doctors to remember that other people that went through what I went through as a child usually checked out. Be it alcohol, drugs or sex, they found unhealthy ways to deal with the effects of their abuse. Not me.
God saddled me with 2 babies and no husband at the age of 22. My only option was to pull myself together and raise them as best I could. To survive and learn how to not abuse them, and to take care of them, to love them. And I did it. Not with medication, but with behavioral therapy. I may not win any ‘Mother Of The Year’ awards, but my kids have proof that they had good childhoods. They were even spoiled rotten, as best as they could be.
Unlike other mothers, I suffer from anxiety. It was hard for me to bond with the other mothers. So I bonded with my kids instead, and all their friends. We played together every day. I taught them how to roller-blade, bike-ride, surf, swim. For example, when they were 15/16, I took them and all their friends trick-or-treating. We brought eggs and all dressed like ninjas. Face=paint & all. I laid the ground rules. No egging the little kids, no stealing candy from anyone & no property damage.
We all went crazy and had a blast for 4 hours racing through the neighborhood being ninjas. It was great fun. That is what I was like as a mother. I may not have done well helping them with their homework, but I did get them to do their homework. Yes, my daughter used to complain that I wasn’t like “Julie’s” mom. How come I didn’t bake her friends brownies while they watched movies at the slumber party & make finger sandwiches? Why couldn’t I just sit with the other mother’s during the soccer games? Why couldn’t I just be a ‘normal’ mom.
I was limited in my ability to interact with the grown-ups. I did treat my kids like playmates. I can admit that. I could have done better. But I did teach them they could do anything they wanted. That they had value and were important. They both did extra-curricular sports and had just about everything they needed as kids. Along with my undivided attention. We swam, we played. It was good.
I taught my son to jump the length of my car in roller-blades. My daughter rode bulls at the age of 11. (safely) She played on the boys football team in 7th grade. My son was a star baseball player. I’d randomly throw them in the car and drive 22 hours to Florida so they could surf. I taught them how to drive. How to clean house & do their laundry. How to properly set the table for a dinner party.
I did abuse them… I’d make them stand on top of the coffee table and read Shakespeare or poetry on a regular basis. I taught my son how to write poetry & speak italian to impress the girls. There was so many things that we did. All of this was possible because of the behavioral therapy. I took the time to go. I made sure I learned how NOT to physically abuse them.
I am a realist. I know that I did emotionally abuse them to an extent. I will admit that. When I became over-loaded with the stress of taking care of them alone, I did yell. Emotional abuse is hard because you can’t see it. I am not perfect. I did make mistakes. But I love my kids with all my heart. I paid my dues. I did the best that I could with what I had to work with. While I may not be proud, I am totally ok with what I was able to do. Back to my point.
Behavioral therapy was my saving grace. Not medication. That is how I managed to have a career and raise my kids, pay my bills and have what many people tell me is an ‘amazing’ life.
OK, so I’m not good with relationships. My current marriage is not my first one. But you’ve got to remember, I’m never going to be 100%. But we have to keep in mind, my 70% is much better than many people’s 100%. I am able to take responsibility for my part of every failed relationship I’ve had. I am not a victim. I am a survivor. And I am going to survive this set-back as well.
See, I get stuck. I get bogged down in things other people don’t get bogged down in. And it takes a little more work on my part to get unstuck. But I’ve learned to manage it effectively. Most of the time I can maneuver through it very well. Every once in a while, I get overwhelmed. And I need someone to guide me back to solid ground. Once I’m back on solid ground, I can take off again. Usually I go right back to where I left off.
This time I needed extra help. Professional help. And I did the right thing. I admitted it was more than I could handle and I sought help. My help wasn’t listening to me. She wasn’t paying attention. She ‘disordered’ me. She doesn’t understand…
This is my life, this is who I am. I am never going to be ‘fixed’. But I can manage my struggles, my weaknesses. And through effective management of those weaknesses, I can be happy, effective and content.
Call it what ever you want… bipolar disorder, depression, generalized anxiety disorder, hell, call it schizophrenia or disassociative personality disorder for all I care. It doesn’t matter what you call it, just as long as the treatment helps. Did you catch that part?
Because really, that’s the important part. JUST SO LONG AS THE TREATMENT HELPS. And if the medication doesn’t work… then it doesn’t help.
Period.
End of sentence.
But I can’t get either of them to hear that…
175lbs.
150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam. 20mg – buspar.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg. Thyroid Booster.
2 EAS cafe shake-220cal. 1 egg-97cal.
3 17oz bottle water.
Shoulder Routine?
176lbs.
150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam. 20mg – buspar.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg. Thyroid Booster.
2 EAS cafe shake-220cal. 1 egg-97cal.
3 17oz bottle water.
Abs/Spine Routine.
Photo By: http://www.weatherpictures.nl
Our Choices in Life – Give up. Give in. Give it our all.
I have been tired. Do you know that tired that creeps up on you so slowly you can’t see it? Kinda like a really bad storm, with all you can see at first are a few cumulonimbus clouds. They appear quite pretty. Big, white, billowy.
They bring intense, sometimes damaging thunderstorms that are typically short-lived. This last week has been the flash-floods, the overwhelming downpour. And finally, finally… I’m tired of being tired. Not to say I’m going to rush out and run any marathons, but I am ready to take a few steps toward the sunshine ahead.
Sometimes you get so tired you have to give up so completely that you move far enough away from your life enough to see what blessings are in it. Afterwards, the roads are still flooded, you can’t get anywhere fast, but you want to get out and move somewhere, even if it’s slowly.
So here I am, moving slowly.
I’ll take my vitamins, write & then do my ab workout. Send some emails, make a few phone calls. Place some ads. Review my follow-up for the ads. Clean the house a bit. And then figure out how I’m going to do my ‘hobby’ work tonight. It’s Dance. Haven’t done that in this house yet. Gotta work out the logistics.
My Gym
Here is one of my blessings – my gym right down the hall. I have struggled to drag myself down there, but I’m starting to make a habit of it. Twice so far this week.
Baby steps. It’s ok that I am not at 100% today. The world is not going to end. Quite frankly, I’m finally tired of worrying about whether it will or not. Just breathe. Just walk forward. The number of steps taken are irrelevant. The movement forward is all that counts.
The diet is what it is. I found a diet that requires NO exercise. And I am TOO active for it to work. That is funny. Being 10 pounds lighter means a lot to me. I am trying not to pressure myself. However…
Door Cables & Punching Bag
However I do have a fire-dance performance coming up in September.
And the big Surf Trip on 9/25. No pressure. Sorry, maybe I’m just not good at this overweight thing. I was so embarrassed showing up for the performance last month. And the organizer, whose been a friend for years, never returned my follow-up email.
Friends are friends, but as a performer… people want what they paid for. My being suddenly overweight wasn’t what they paid for. Showing up in “cover my fatness” clothes instead of performance attire wasn’t good. When people hire a performer, they want beautiful, sexy and talented. Not just talented, they are hiring the whole package. When I booked this show last year, I was expecting that surely by this time, I’d be a little thinner.
This was supposed to be what spring-boarded us into additional performances. It didn’t work out that way…
Off to go do/write that ab/spine work out…
My Gym 2
175.6lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam. 20mg – buspar.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg. Thyroid Booster.
1 EAS cafe shake-110cal.
1 17oz bottle water.
Leg Routine.
I’m confused by the twitter thing. I’m looking for support with my weight loss from people that are on a similar journey. I am not a professional blogger. This is a therapy blog, I write out my feelings. I don’t run ads, I’m not making income off my site. I was hoping to find support and validation from others.
I started searching on twitter looking for a community of people that were working towards losing weight and being healthy. It didn’t work. I don’t understand why. I want to understand why.
There must be others out in the blogosphere like me. I seriously doubt I am the only one. I thought that blogging would be different than facebook. Different in the sense that facebook is highly surface. Not shallow, just surface. People want short, quick validation and if you give them continual short, quick validation they will return you some short, quick validation.
I understand that. I use facebook for that. Surface interaction with others around where I live. I have over 2000 FB friends. It works for what it is intended for.
But here… here I had hoped I could have found a few people that would read what I was going through and respond back with their opinion. Their honest opinion. And that traffic could be increased from twitter by bringing larger numbers of readers, ensuring that you found those few people that cared enough, based on their own struggles, to say something.
So, what am I doing wrong? Why is it not working? How do I modify the approach to make it work for what I need? Has the blogosphere become just a different format of facebook?
I put this out here today. I’m hoping YOU respond…
173.6lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam. 20mg – buspar.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg. Thyroid Booster.
1 EAS cafe shake-110cal.
1 17oz bottle water.
Chest Routine.
Yes, I will sing praises to you, oh Lord. Thank you for bringing me my answers. Thank you for putting me in a place where I can lose this weight and finally be healthy.
Very busy day today, I start working with time blocking – new and different style of time management for me. Wish me luck!!
Over the weekend I rode 2 days. Yesterday was a 28 mile hard & fast bike ride!! I offset my calorie intake for it Saturday. Dieted all day, finished the night with birthday cake & ice cream. Sunday went right back to hard-core dieting, but with the higher calorie intake. Looks like I survived.
I am happy. I am very happy. I am so happy I can barely contain myself!! I am losing weight like a normal person. I eat healthy food – I exercise comfortably – I LOSE WEIGHT!!!!!
This is all I wanted…
174.6lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam. 20mg – buspar.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg. Thyroid Booster.
1 adkins shake-160cal. 1 adkins shake-160cal.
4 17oz bottle water.
1 hour bike ride at 12mph. Who cares how many calories it burned!!!
A hormone imbalance? That is the reason why I exercise like crazy, watch what I eat and CANNOT LOSE WEIGHT????
You mean no matter HOW MUCH EXERCISE I DO, I still won’t be able to lose weight if I have a HORMONE IMBALANCE????
I have a progesterone level of 0.02???? Is that like, almost no progesterone in my system AT ALL????
That causes what symptoms????
Unexplained weight gain – Anxiety – Cyclical headaches. Mood swings. Lethargic depression, memory problems and foggy thinking. Really? You mean I may not be bipolar and taking an anti-psychotic probably wouldn’t be a good idea?????
Well, I’ll be damned. Guess it’s a good thing I fought really hard with the head shrinker about her prescribing me anti-psychotics that would have caused even more WEIGHT GAIN!!!!!!!
Can you tell that I’m MAD. See all the CAP WRITING. Ha! I am so glad we have found out what is wrong with me. I am so glad I did my research about which anxiety medication to take. I picked one that doesn’t cause weight gain. Did you see the number up there???
Glorious 174.6lbs. That is a size 12. That is what used to be my biggest weight of all time. That is only what the scale reads today. Do you realize that it will read less next week?
Do you know that I have been fighting this weight for so long I can’t even really believe this??? But every day will bring me closer to next month, and we will see what happens.
However, I’m still mad as hell. How many women are out there suffering unnecessarily, because they aren’t in the habit of fighting with their doctors?
5 years ago when I first met my husband, his doctor had him on high blood pressure medicine, high cholesterol medicine and was getting ready to fit him for some insanely expensive weirdo contraption to ‘cure’ him of his sleep apnea.
He weight 258, the doctor NEVER suggested exercise and NEVER suggested dietary changes, just threw him on medications. When he met me I was happy, healthy and thin, remember? 148lbs to be exact. I ate a high protein, quality carb diet. I rode my bike, life was good.
As we dated, he began to make small changes in his food. He also started biking. He started losing weight. He started feeling better. His blood pressure regulated, his cholesterol dropped, his sleep apnea went away…
Please learn how to fight with your doctors. Please understand they are good people, but only have 15 minutes to figure stuff out. Do your research before you go in. Learn to listen to your bodies, we know what we feel better than anyone. This is called being a responsible patient. We have to fight for our health sometimes, for our lives.
178.2lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam. 20mg buspar.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg. Thyroid Booster.
2 magic vanilla shake-160cal. 1 egg-97cal. 4oz blueberries-50cal. 6oz raspberries-90cal. 6oz blackberries-72cal. 7oz guacamole-315cal. 3 sq in cheese-330cal. adkins shake-160cal. 3oz chicken-90cal. 4oz NYS Steak-210cal. TOTAL CALORIES – 1574.
4 17oz bottle water.
no exercise.
God! One minute you’re stressing about all that is terrible in the world, next minute the world magically rights itself momentarily.
I was at the fat Dr this morning. They were all jumping for joy because I lost .4 in 1 week. I didn’t report the correct weight last week, it was 178.6lbs. God forbid we leave out that little .6lbs and screw everything up. Needless to say, I was pissed. I spent HOW MUCH MONEY??? Gee, at this rate, by the end of the 40 days, I’ll lose… 3lbs. THREE POUNDS IN 6 WEEKS?????? Thought you said I’d lose .5 pound a day, NOT A WEEK.
Anyway, I really hate being mean to people when I’m frustrated. I didn’t ‘get’ angry, I just ‘was’ angry. No sense in taking it out on the girl that works there, she didn’t make me a fat ass. She thought it would be good for me to speak to their nurse practitioner. That made me feel better. As I was sitting in her office, I noticed she looked vaguely familiar. Rapidly filing through my data bank… a bike ride? An art show? A lecture? Come on, come on, come on, I know her from somewhere…
Wait, is it, oh, my… yes! I did counseling with her several years back! She helped me work on some really good stuff. Because of the work with her, I increase my quality of life a great deal. She validated me. Talking with her made me remember that I did go through counseling, and it didn’t make me feel stressed out and depressed. Talking with her made me feel better.
This empowered me. She never tried to pin some diagnosis label on me, she just did therapy with me. It was good. She’s very brilliant. And she prefers homeopathic treatments, like me. Not that you can fix everything naturally, but medicate only when necessary and then make sure it is the right medicine. She agrees that the Buspar is a good med for anxiety.
She feels that my thyroid is still not properly treated. Is giving me some thyroid booster to adjust it so I can lose weight like I’m supposed to. Also recommended I see my gyn to get Prometrum, a natural progesterone. She’s going to do additional testing and see what is causing the weight gain. Let me tell you something…those of us that are overweight and have dieted & exercised and can’t lose the weight… something is wrong inside our bodies.
And we have to FIGHT with our doctors to find out what is wrong. If I had been more insistent with the doctor in February of 2008, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be carrying so much weight today. The 5 months I spent last summer dieting and exercising would have taken the weight off like it should have. Basically, my progesterone level is so low, it’s almost zero. Once my hormone levels are normal, my body will react more normal.
I will still have to eat healthy food and exercise regularly, but I won’t have to starve & exhaust myself to be a healthy weight. This is what I was talking about to the fat acceptance people. Don’t accept it. Make the health care system you pay for work for you. Get the right tests done, force the issue if you have to, but don’t accept it.
Don’t tell me God isn’t at work in our lives every moment of every day…
Stu, my friend… I couldn’t help but feel, as I was leaving that office, that you must have said a really strong prayer for me in the last few days… thanks!
176lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam. 20mg buspar.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg.
1 magic vanilla shake-80cal. 1 egg-97cal. Brussel/snappea/spinach soup 8oz-50cal.
2 17oz bottle water.
no exercise.
My god, but I ate a lot of food yesterday. The fat DR upped my calorie intake to 700, not 1400. This only being the 2nd week of the diet, I cannot tell if it is the Sunday bike ride, the new meds, the stress from the depression or just me over-eating. Being objective, I can see that I ate less vegetables and fruit. I will have to watch this. So, more delicious blueberries, raspberries and blackberries today…
I’m trying to figure out how I feel. Very draaggggyyyyy. Very out-of-sorts. There is no crisis looming on the horizon that is visible, so I’m very scattered. There are several non-crisis items looming below the surface, but I don’t seem to care about them. I do hope the counselor is willing to listen to me next week and will give some consideration to my “able to function in crisis, unable to function in non-crisis” theory. OMG, what if I know what I’m talking about?
When Mr. Wonderful first met me, he thought I thought I knew everything. Over time he saw that I was pretty open about admitting when I did not know something (which happens to be alot). So, usually when I tell him about something, he knows, from past history, it’s probably good information. I know how I feel better than anyone. I know when I get anxious, I know when I am calm.
It is such a waste of time to have to fight against this counselor. Mr. Wonderful & I will fix our marriage issues very soon, but in a different counseling session – with a different counselor – one that has stronger biblical beliefs. Her job is to help me, her ‘client’, GET BACK TO WORK AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. Sitting around waiting for the meds to kick in, or her to finally start HEARING me is wasting a lot of potential ‘work time’.
When your to-do list has always been crisis based, you pick the biggest crisis, the ugliest of the frogs, and off you go. I’m trying to figure out what to do first, what to save for later. Can’t seem to focus on any thing. I used to know how to do this…
177lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam. 10mg buspar.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg.
1 magic vanilla shake-80cal. 1 magic chocolate shake-80cal. 2 eggs-194cal. 2 adkins cafe shakes-320cal. 3oz beef & onions-175cal. 1 magic pineapple orange shake-70cal. 1 adkins strawberry shake-160cal. 2 eggs-194cal. 3oz beef & onions-175cal. 1 pickle w/ mustard. TOTAL CALORIES – 1473.
9 17oz bottle water.
no exercise.
Yesterday began ‘the new med’. To recap, 2 months ago, before I took the bupropion I was feeling anxious but able to function most of the time. Taking the bupropion put me in a strong place of non-functioning within 3 weeks. It was swift and profound. I stopped taking it on July 3rd, it was out of my system by July 23rd. But the complete inability to function never went away.
I wish these doctors understood that their cavalier attitudes prescribing these dangerous mood medications have profound and time-consuming effects on the people that take them. Buspar is an anti-anxiety medication. I’m only taking this because I fought with my doctor. At the end of the first and second appointment, although she wouldn’t tell me her diagnosis, she did say she was highly concerned about my anxiety. Then she proceeded to prescribe me an anti-psychotic. Do you see any logic there? I’m not psychotic, I’m anxious. (unless she’s trying to make me psychotic by responding illogically j/k)
I told her I wouldn’t take it, so she prescribed me… another anti-psychotic. Excuse me, is there some part of this that is supposed to make sense? Give me a break. I’m already in a weakened state if I’m sitting in front of you, head-shrinker. Don’t make me have to fight you to get you to prescribe the right meds. YOU’RE THE DOCTOR, FOR GOD’S SAKE! It’s your job, not mine. Take it serious and be ACCURATE.
I’m anxious about taking the new meds. Partly because I suffer from anxiety and partly because the last 5 meds I was given over the last 10 years did not work and cost me a lot of time getting through them. You have to take them for several weeks before feeling the full effects. Given SRRI’s for depression turned me into a raging angry person that did not care about anything. That was fun. Each one cost 2 months of time from work and life.
The bupropion, which is an anti-depressent, made me more depressed than I’ve ever been. And I wasn’t taking it for depression. I was taking it for anxiety. I really hope this anti-anxiety medication actually helps with my anxiety this time. Yesterday I spent 13 hours in my office at my home, unable to do anything… I’ve never been this debilitated from my anxieties.
And the counselor is now off trying to ‘solve’ my marriage problems, instead of helping me get back to doing my job. I’m starting to feel crazy. I want to get a t-shirt for my counseling & head-shrinking sessions that says:
I’M NOT YOUR NEW LEXUS PAYMENT!
Would that be offensive?
You will have to forgive me. I am a demanding person. I expect psychiatric doctors to be very accurate in what they do. They prescribe medications that are dangerous. Given the right circumstances, these medications can save lives. But they need to be administered with care. Not thrown at someone as though they were candy.
I give certain leeway to counselors, because they are not doctors. These are dangerous medications. It is hard to tell nowadays what is more dangerous, the medication or the side effects from them.
Don’t get me wrong, my head-shrinker is a really nice lady, but she has absolutely no medical records on me at all. Usually when prescribing the meds she’s prescribing, liver & kidney tests need to be run. Medical history has to be taken into consideration, due to the side effects. Because she chose to not have these tests run, I do question her prescribing these medicines. She views that as me being paranoid. I’m sure she’ll be leaning more towards schizophrenia now…
And really, my biggest problem with all of this is I am not qualified to be making these decisions. That’s why I’m spending the money going to see them. I can order any meds I want off the internet. If I were capable, I could just get this stuff myself. What I am paying for is their EXPERT knowledge. So I expect them to treat this as if they were experts, I am so demanding. Geesh…
177lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg.
1 magic chocolate shake-80cal. 3oz chicken-90cal. Vegetable soup-50cal. 1 egg-97cal. 1 magic chocolate shake-80cal. 1 egg-97cal. 3oz chicken-90cal. TOTAL CALORIES – 584.
1 17oz bottle water.
no exercise.
I didn’t want to track my food yesterday. I did keep my calories around 700, which is what the fat DR told me to do after a weekend of bike riding. He did also tell me if I rode my bike, I wold need more calories, so I wouldn’t lose. I am ok with that. Riding on the weekend is not an option when you run a cycling club. I have to show up. I have to ride, whether I want to or not. I’ll see loss later this week.
I feel I did good with the food. Yesterday was extremely stressful. I forgot I had scheduled a counseling session on a Monday, not good. Then the ‘amazing’ counselor decided that we needed to do a double session. I wasn’t emotionally prepared for it, but things are going so slow with her that I jumped at the chance. It was really draining. I needed some good ole’ emotional eating. I had 1/2 teaspoon of fat-filled salad dressing AND dipped my fork into the mustard container 10 times as my big ‘cheat’. Then I had the high calorie adkins shake. (160cal instead of 70cal in the magic shakes)
Not the most devastating emotional eating episode I ever had, but it is important to note that I still turned to food for relief. That means I have not come up with an effective substitute during high stress times. If I don’t come up with an effective substitute, I will set myself up for failure. See, it’s not about having willpower. It’s about understanding what is causing the unwanted behavior and coming up with effective alternatives that enable you to effectively deal with emotionally stressful situations. (I came up with that all by my self!!)
I only did one set of chest exercises yesterday, then realized I needed to rush off to my counseling session. Way too emotionally spent the rest of the day to work out. Today is leg day. And I have a butt-kicking leg session I put together. Ouch. Two weeks ago when I did it, I couldn’t get up from my desk the following day, it was hilarious. Gosh, it is sad I have so much fitness knowledge and this depression keeps me so locked down that I cannot use it to lose weight.
I waited far too long to go to counseling. I wonder how many people struggling with their weight are also struggling with depression? Are you struggling with depression? It limits my ability to make healthy choices. Behavioral therapy is much more effective than medication, but most doctors prefer to prescribe medication. Fast & easy fix… for them.
It’s hard to find counselors that are not dependent on working with psychiatrists. My counselor is not comfortable without the head-shrinker working with her. That was the reason for the double session. She is at her wits end because I haven’t started my medication yet. I keep telling her that behavioral therapy has been scientifically proven to be more effective and longer lasting than any medication therapy available today. She totally disagrees with me. It’s frustrating. Before I am medicated, she’s able to see my real coping skills and stressors. The medication will mask them.
The best way to find a non-shrink-dependent counselor is to go to a public clinic. You know the ones that work with sliding scale payments? That’s them. Counselors are not allowed to prescribe meds, and if the clinic doesn’t have a shrink, then that counselor has learned to counsel without the aid of a head-shrinker, without the aid of medication. Typically their methodology is much more effective.
Overweight people that are struggling to lose weight ALL need counseling. It’s the only way to learn the skills to manage emotional eating effectively. Many of the forms of cognitive behavioral therapy are helpful. It takes a lot of the pressure off. And most, if not all, depression medication causes weight gain, which will cause you to be fatter and way more depressed. Cognitive behavioral therapy doesn’t cause weight gain.
It’s a win-win. However, therapy is hard. You have to leave your ‘vitim-status’ card at the door and take responsibility for your choices. Many people prefer to go to weight watchers instead. I don’t really think it’s as effective as direct counseling, but we live in an ‘I want it to be easy’ society. What can you do?
176lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg.
1 magic chocolate shake-80cal. Did not track food on blog or twitter.
5 17oz bottle water.
1 set of chest routine.
So, the fat DR explained that if I exercised, I might gain weight. He upped my calories on exercise days to 750. I had trouble counting calories as we had a busy weekend with cycling and sailing. I was very careful about what I ate and am getting better finding ways to make my food more portable.
It feels good to consistently see the 176lbs when I jump on the scale. I know I shouldn’t be weighing at all, but this is week 2 and I plan on weaning myself off. Right now I need the motivation and have done well not feeling too unmotivated when it jumps up to 177 or 178.
Today is chest day, the day I am supposed to get back to weight training. And I’m sitting here writing this instead. Not good. Still struggling with the feelings of loneliness I discussed on other posts and this computer time feels like going to a virtual Starbucks without the threat of blueberry muffins. Something I will have to wean myself off too.
If you read this and have time to comment, I cannot tell you what that will mean to me. I’m doing well with the food intake and calories. I just don’t have any support. My cycling friends mostly do not struggle with weigh so it makes me the odd duck out.
176lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg.
1 egg-97cal. 2 magic shakes-140cal. 5oz raspberries, 1/2 pint blueberries, 5oz blackberries. 2 magic chocolate shakes-160cal. 1 zuccini & 3oz chicken-120cal. 1 adkins shake – 160cal. TOTAL CALORIES – 848.
9 17oz bottle water.
Bike ride- 28 miles @ 14.8mph. I ain’t counting the calorie burn, but I know I rode too hard.
I’m off sailing!!
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My Yacht
While Sailing
176lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg.
1 magic vanilla shake-80cal. 1 magic pineapple orange shake-70cal. 1 egg-97cal. brussel/cauli/spinach/collard green soup 8 oz-50cal.
5 large strawberries-30cal. 1/4 cup blueberries-20cal. 1 egg-97cal. brussel/cauli/spinach/collardgrn soup 8 oz-50cal. TOTAL CALORIES – 494.
8 17oz bottle water.
1.5 hour lite bike ride – 10mph – I ain’t counting the calorie burn, doctors orders.
It needs to have the full orchestra and philharmonic choir behind it to really understand what I am feeling. It has been so long. I have been locked at 185 pounds and unable to move below it. I am below it and it feels so good.
What is going to make this different is that I am actively working towards removing emotional eating from my life. Working with a counselor, I am learning to identify triggers and unhealthy responses.
Example of an unhealthy response is to have a fight with my husband, get angry and ingest 965 calories in 15 minutes in the form of ice cream and a couple candy bars. (it was a BAD fight) Yes, the sugar gives me an instant jolt, which in turn becomes a lethargic carb-coma, which I have taught myself is ‘dealing with my emotions’ since I now don’t give a shit. It also jacks up my insulin production, turning my body into a super-fat storing machine, so the 45 grams of fat just ingested will be immediately stored… for life.
I have also put my husband on notice that he & I need to work out our problems or seek counseling because I’m not going to spend another 4 years harping his butt to do what is reasonable of any full-sized adult while trying to eat my way stable. I AM DONE. I don’t know where any of you are at, but 5 years ago I was happy, carefree and THIN.
I entered into this relationship to improve the quality of my life, not destroy it. I am standing up for my self. Whatever is making him unhappy, IT’S NOT MY FAULT! We are adults – something frustrates you, I am available to talk about it 24/7, so long as there is no whining, blaming or manipulating me into thinking that you’re feeling bad about yourself is somehow my fault. IT’S NOT, you screwed your life up just fine on your own, thank you!
You are free to remain in a relationship with me if you are willing to carry your load, talk about what has you upset, problem-solve issues out in a manner that brings about viable solutions and take responsibility for your inadequacies. At no time in my life has ANYONE confused me for a doormat. It doesn’t work that way.
And just in case you are thinking you can fall back into your “poor me, see how mean and controlling she is” mode, keep in mind… you are welcome to remain a life-long member of the I AM A VICTIM club, you don’t have to change a thing. Just do it somewhere else!
Wow. This counseling stuff is powerful.
178lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg.
1 magic berry shake-70cal. 1 chocolate magic shake-80cal. 1 Raspberry tea shake-60cal. 3oz chicken-90cal. 1 pint blueberries-185cal. 6oz raspberries-50cal. 6oz blackberries-45cal – TOTAL CALORIES 580.
7 17oz bottle water.
no exercise.
There, it happened. Finally. Did you see it? I am officially below 180lbs. It probably won’t last as I transgressed yesterday. Hubby brought guacamole home. I was doing well after my berry feast. Had a client appointment that was taxing. Allowed the daily weighing (yes, Stu, it’s not good for me) get the better of me. Cooked my 3oz of chicken, which would have put me at 635 calories for the day.
Hubby was in a pissy mood when he got home. And I determined that I needed some guacamole on my chicken. That added 158 calories. He threw a little ‘you ate MY guacamole’ temper-tantrum. Then I decided, to hell with this, I’ll have 1 small drink. The chocolate martini hit me a little harder than expected. I countered with 2 adkins shakes, adding an additional 320 calories to the mix. Then I went to bed. He was still pissed that I ate his guacamole. Get over it, dude.
Today is my first official weigh in. I am excited. I know the information they give me is all hype and sales pitch, but I’m in a desperate place, so I’ll let my mind accept the info as if it were real, for now. Truth is the HCG injections probably do nothing more than enable me to live on a 600 calorie a day diet. But ANYONE will lose weight on a 600 calorie diet, even those of us that are metabolically resistant.
If this is the only way I can lose, and it causes me to lose, I will do it. Can it put me on the other side of all that emotional eating that I did? Can it put me in a place where I can strategically make the good choices now that I understand the consequences of the poor choices? Can this bring me to a place where I can have a normal relationship with food and exercise? That is the plan.
I don’t know yet what the procedure is for weaning me off the HCG. Of introducing a 1200 calorie diet back to my life. Of being in a place where I have my usually active lifestyle coupled with normal amounts of daily exercise. We don’t know yet how much of my new relationship with this man I am married to is part of the weight problem. We are working on that now.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to avoid responsibility and blame him for my being fat. When in counseling last week, as I was going on about my poor choices and reactions to things around me, the counselor got focused on the hubby. She felt that he was putting a lot of pressure on me. That there were things he was not taking personal responsibility with.
See, we had some problems when we made the transition from dating to living in sin. Obviously, our both coming out of failed relationships, we had habits that were unhealthy, that added to the dissolution of the past relationships. This was back when I was thin and still beautiful. He was struggling with things that I did that angered him and frustrated him. He was unable to express those feelings in a healthy, mature way, so he held them in. They came out, as they always will in one way or another, in a very passive-aggressive manner.
Even though I was, according to him, the most attractive woman he had ever been with, he began actively looking at other women for sexual fodder. (and in that tacky, i-don’t-care-that-you-are-sitting-right-in-front-of-me kind of a way) Well, that affects a woman, it affects every woman. And not in a good way.
It caused me to withdraw from him sexually and emotionally. Given the right circumstances, I am very sexually open and free. I am a highly sexual being, and always in the context of a committed relationship, with my significant other. Before the fat, it was a truly win-win situation. OMG, she’s hot and has very strong biblical beliefs that makes her very loyal to one man, and one man only. And I’m that man. Well, how cool for you.
See, I have spent my entire grown up life being what society considers acceptable. Tall, blonde, thin. Beautiful long legs. Even, (his words) a great butt! Wild curly hair. Everywhere I would go, men would look at me and try to flirt with me. I guess when you are what society accepts, it gives you confidence in that area. So I never needed strangers to validate my worth sexually. If fact, it did nothing more than piss me off.
One time I was walking into a store with my kids and some guy thought nothing of coming up to me and explaining that he ‘found me really attractive’. Right in front of my kids. I said something polite but firm and rushed away embarrassed. My son asked why that man said that? I told him that he was just being a silly person and we got on with our shopping.
For all of you guys that do that stuff to attractive women, let me let you in on a little secret. We hate it. I know, I know, you meant no harm. I’ve never had someone be tacky or rude with me. They always did it in a polite, respectful way. But it was always an unwelcomed intrusion. And really attractive women don’t need to even entertain the thought that some blading, paunchy troll finds them attractive. It’s just not a good thing.
What we really want, and what we really need is for our chosen partner to think that way of us all the time. When I committed myself to my husband, back when we were dating, he became my single source for sexual satisfaction. He is, by society’s yardstick, a very average man. He was (and still is) overweight, middle aged, and has vanilla tendencies. It totally didn’t matter to me. I was completely awed and in love.
This is NOT my husband!
Then he decided that, (his words) if he could get someone as amazing as me, who else could he get? Obviously something about him had changed and he had been suddenly transformed into some sexual god that rivaled Brad Pitt. How do you guys do that? I spent a year, wandering around blissfully, thanking God that I had met this truly wonderful man.
Then his unhealthy habits from his previous marriage became commonplace in our lives. IN MY LIFE. And being the accommodating person that I am, I tried to come up with solutions. But he was unable to look at himself honestly, he was unable to talk about the problems we were having that might have been triggering the unwanted behavior. He had trapped himself in a unhealthy pattern and I had no right to try to ‘change’ him.
Decision-wise, I was torn. I’m not into changing people into what I need them to be. The best solution seemed to be to leave him and move on to someone a little more emotionally healthy. Then I remembered back to the time I spent dating, before I met him. There isn’t a large pool of emotionally healthy people in this country. Seems everyone is carrying baggage.
So, I tried to look at the alternative, staying with him. What would it take. We had a long heart-to-heart. He agreed his behaviors were not healthy, we did a lot of talking about how this had been a very large part of his 18 year marriage that had ended in divorce. He made statements about wanting to be healthy, wanting to work things out.
We moved on optimistically, putting this all in the past. We didn’t get very far. We tried to go to marriage counseling. He sat there and LIED to the counselor, painting this picture of what a horrible person I was and how he was doing everything he could to appease me and keep harmony in our lives.
While I was totally open to us exploring my unhealthy behavior and things I was doing that brought negative results in our relationship, there was never ANY talk about what his unhealthy behaviors were. So, when it was my time to talk about my problems, I offered it all up, the good, bad and ugly. Then when it was his turn… he talked about how hard it was to live with me, how he had given up his life and now was living my life. How that made him feel emasculated.
Granted, this would have been excellent information if it had be presented along with the damaging behavior he was doing. But it never was. He lied about it instead. So all the counselor heard was me talking about what I felt was unhealthy behavior on my part, and him talking about how beaten down he was by me.
One of the keys to successful problem-solving is to identify the problem. You have to lay it out on the table before you, get a good look at it from all sides and then work to find solutions. While it can be difficult, it’s not brain surgery. I told him if he wasn’t going to be honest in counseling, we didn’t need to waste the time. We stopped. And I’ve been trying to eat my way out of this mess ever since.
Recently, he has begun to look at the choices from his previous marraige and how they might have contributed to it’s failure. He’s also began sharing his feelings with me about things that I may do that do not bring about effective results. I did not come into this relationship feeling that I had been ‘wronged’ in my last relationship. I knew there were things that I did to bring about it’s failure.
I know I have to look at my negative contribution in any relationship that I have, and am willing to do that. But it takes two to tango, baby. If a relationship is suffering, it ain’t just one person’s fault. I am blogging about this because I need to get it off my chest. Talking about it with the counselor, even though I didn’t think it would help, made me feel so relieved. And writing about it here is making me feel a lot better too. I actually did some work yesterday. My brain functioned like normal for about 3 hours. It was amazing. I know it is way TMI. But what can I say. This blog is to assist me with staying sane enough to get through counseling.
180lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg.
1 magic berry shake-70cal. 1 pint bluberries-180cal. 6oz raspberries-90cal. 6oz blackberries-72cal. 4 pickles – 30cal. 1 egg-97cal. 3oz chicken-90 cal. 3.5oz guacamole-158cal. 2 adkins shakes-320cal. TOTAL CALORIES – 1107.
9 17oz bottle water.
no exercise.
I am completely devastated. I wasn’t expecting to lose a lot of weight this first week. I was expecting to lose a couple pounds. 1… 2 maybe. How do I maintain a 600 calorie a day diet for 4 days and not lose anything? They told me not to exercise during the first week. That advice combined with these horrific headaches lead me to not exercise all week except for the riding Saturday & Sunday. But my diet has been dead on. 1 day i ate 668 calories, but still. My big cheat that day was some fruit? I can’t believe this…
Regroup. Next week I will add hard-core weight training to this diet. I know they said that exercise wasn’t going to help. But I am not going to spend another 40 days dieting and not seeing results. And my internist is in for an unpleasant visit this morning if she doesn’t help me address the possibilities of what might be wrong with my metabolism.
[[[[[after dr visit]]]]]My internist was cool in understanding my frustration. We reviewed my charts and determined the thyroid meds are working, levels are good. She cannot help me figure out what is wrong. That’s what she said. ”I just cannot figure out what is wrong.” (i never know what that means, exactly) She’s worried an endocrinologist won’t see me because my tests don’t show a problem. Seems you have to be ‘sick’ in order to see the endo doc. She is going to attempt to refer me and see whether I can get in.
Yes, this news freaked me out. Yes, I went into an emotional tail spin and raced for food. No, I did not get ice cream & chocolate. I ate a sheeton of berries instead. So I will have to find a way to starve through the rest of my day. I am not going to beat myself up, but I am going to note this emotion response and the out of control eating reaction. I have to learn to handle stressful situations by reducing my anxiety in ways that do not involve eating.
181lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg.
1 adkins caramel cafe shake-160cal. cauliflower soup-117cal. cauliflower soup-117cal. 1 magic wild berry splash shake -70cal. cabbage & spinach soup w/ 3 oz chicken breast-150cal. TOTAL CALORIES – 614.
9 17oz bottle water.
no exercise.
I overate by 168 calories yesterday. We’re going to have to work on this. Hubby brought fruit into the house – it was gone in 10 minutes. I haven’t had fruit in 2 months. I don’t want to pat myself on the back, but not bad for a cheat, eh? Normally cheating involves 800-1500 calories. Although not sticking to the 500 calories isn’t good, it could have been so much worse.
I am allowed to exercise a little with this diet. The headaches have been so bad, I haven’t been able to. I was told they would go away next week. I will use my time this week writing out my work out routines for the remaining days and posting them. It was really cool being able to pull the blog up and access the routine last week.
Some of yesterday’s eating felt like emotional eating. Counseling session #4. It was a difficult session. My hunger felt controlled before the session. After the session, I was starving. I had an extra shake mid afternoon. Then, at dinner, with the fruit, I gorged myself. I’m trying really hard to just do the diet without concern. This is the first week. It doesn’t matter if I lose this week. Just that I get used to the 500 calories, the hcg shots and the headaches. Next week, I can incorporate the weight training into it and then we’ll see.
Tomorrow I meet with my internist. She is hesitant to talk about my weight. I need her to get involved with this. While much of the current fatness is from eating and reducing calories, something must be wrong. I know life isn’t about what if’s, but sometimes it is helpful with problem-solving. So, what if last year I was able to spend the 4 months riding 200 miles a week, restricting calories and I lost a normal amount of weight? Would my choices for the rest of the year been different? What if this year the riding and dieting had given some results? Would I be in a different place now?
I wonder how many overweight people that are metabolically resistant have grown weary from doing some exercise and dieting, only to see limited to no results. During my 30 day shake diet, when I would ride 30 miles, I gained weight. For those of you exercising now, what would that do for your motivation? (and no, having ridden for 10 years, I do not build/add muscle when I ride.) Anyway…
182lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg.
1 magic chocolate shake-80cal. 1 egg-97cal. 3 oz chicken-105cal. 1 EAS shake-110cal. 1 magic pineapple orange shake-70cal. 1 cup blueberries-82cal. 4oz raspberries-52cal. 1 zucchinil. -32cal. 1/4 cup mushrooms-40cal. TOTAL CALORIES-668.
3 17oz bottle water.
no exercise.
I know. I’m not supposed to be weighing every day. It is.. disheartening. It was just a lot of money for a 40 day program. I’m anxious. I need this diet to work. Yesterday I was 114 calories over my limit with no exercise. Not good. One of the problems is that we did not go shopping for the new diet food over the weekend. My choices are limited at best and I have no water.
I made spinach soup. I don’t know that I will win any culinary awards, but it only has 25 calories per serving. I was going to heat spinach in water just to soften it, added salt & lemon juice for flavor. Then saw all the liquid in the pan and though “is that all the nutrients”? And my new staple meal was borne. I feel part of my going over on my calories yesterday was the choice of beef. I am going to switch to chicken and see if I am able to sustain the low calories better.
They told me I might have a headache on this diet. OMG. It was incredibly painful. A migraine, but like on steroids. Way intense. I have to come up with a new feeding schedule.
7am – breakfast
10am – snack morning
12:30 – lunch
4pm – snack afternoon
7pm – dinner
I am allowed 100 calories per meal. I have set alarms in my phone for each time. Pretty simple. Now I want to see if my twitter posts reflect this schedule. I will try to tweet every time I eat. I just need to slow down and build new habits. Ah, the bane of all the overweight. Today I have a counseling session. 45 minutes. We haven’t really accomplished much in the 4 weeks I have seen her. Real basic behavioral stuff. I was really upset that last week she wasted time talking about the upcoming meeting with the head shrinker. I have 1.5 hours to work things out with the head shrinker, only 45 with the counselor. So, I need her counseling during that 45 minutes.
Another thing that bothers me is that she misunderstands a lot of what I say. Example: Told her my husband & I spent time ‘getting me ready’ for the appointment. You know, taking some time talking, getting things in perspective, so when I go in to talk with her I don’t spend my time pretending I’m ok and avoiding things. That prompted her to waste a lot of time investigating my dependency on my husband and his on me. Duh, I am trying to be more effective. Yes, I am in a state of crisis, so yes I am currently more dependent on his support until the counseling and head shrinking give me the tools to be more independent. Our relationship isn’t normally like this.
We have strong biblically-based beliefs on relationships between husbands and wives. We’ve noticed there are things we may do differently than couples that are not in a strong relationship with God. One of our beliefs is that God brought the two of us together as a perfect compliment of our strengths and weaknesses. We have seen countless times that he is strong where I am weak, and I have strengths he doesn’t have yet. God knows what He is doing.
We feel that we are a team, and dependent on the other in a way that enables us to be stronger. A single strand of rope has so much strength, braid it with 2 other ropes, it becomes much stronger. Husband – Wife – God = very strong rope. I have seen so many times that when we submit our wills and work as a team, things are easier to manage. Is that co-dependent? I don’t think so.
If my husband has difficulties at work, like the management promotion he had early last year, he is able to come home and we brainstorm & problem-solve the situation. He came home, completely freaked out, because he didn’t know how to manage and the general manager was not training him at all. So, we worked together over the course of several months, exploring, learning and growing. My husband has many strengths. He appears very timid, but he has always placed himself in jobs that required great strength. When he gets angry, he is very strong. (mentally, not physically)
This shows me that he is strong, but has been conditioned to be timid. He spent 15 years being a police officer. That is not a job for a timid person. I don’t believe he would have continued for 15 years and come away from it happy if he was not well suited for the job. Management requires strength. When I watch the people at his work, I see the current management leads from fear & productivity is low. I also see that while the other managers have always required respect from the employees, the employees feel strong respect for my husband naturally, because of how he interacts with them.
He did not know this. We used that as he developed his management style. It made all the employees more productive, which increased profits. I did not go in and manage for him every day. I was ready every night so we could go over what happened, we talked about things he tried that were good, things tried that were not so good. He started to gain skills in managing people better. He applied that to the strong work ethics he has always had. This made him a great manager. It wasn’t me that did it, but the support he had at home coupled with his hard work. That is an example of how we work as a team. Co-dependent? I dunno, his income has increase 25K in a bad economy.
So, in making the decision to seek counseling to help me out of my crisis, it is natural that we are going to work together to ‘get me ready’ for my counseling session. In talking with him, I am able to put real problems at the surface, so I don’t waste time whining about how terrible life is to me, enabling me to fall into complete victim status and waste counseling time.
We live in a society that encourages victim-like behavior. Everything happens TO us, it is never a matter of cause & effect. It is never that something happens BECAUSE of us. Because of our choices or lack of action. I love homeless people, we have been involved with homeless ministry for years. I enjoy spending time with them, teaching them about God and feeding them.
But when I drive home to my house, I understand that much of their homelessness involves making poor life choices. Our society would rather give them disability checks than teach them to be independent. No one teaches them how to make better choices to get off the street. I’ve seen this same thing with the fat acceptance people. I love them, I can feel their pain, but they are so trapped in victim thinking it scares me.
At the end of every day, I am fat because I did not make good choices. Maybe if I’m exercising like crazy and not losing weight, I need to look at everything I am eating. Maybe if I removed foods that increase insulin and cannot see any change, I need to do some research and go to my doctor and insist that he investigate what is causing the problem with my weight loss.
Maybe I need to fight for it. But I don’t need to get angry because my doctor says my ankle’s being torn up is due to my weight, maybe I need to tell him “that is good information, now lets look at my weight because here is what I am doing, eating, etc and I am not losing, what tests can you run to find the problem”…Same thing with my counselor. I don’t want to spend 5 sessions talking about co-dependency.
I would rather use those 5 sessions investigating specifically why I am afraid to do a job I’ve done for 20+ years and get to the specific triggers, actions and behaviors so tomorrow I can do “a little more work”. And then next week we can look at the changes in behaviors, the poor choices I may have made and what additional tools she can suggest I try so I can do some more work each and every day. I believe that is the only thing that is going to get me back to the functioning place… where I was 2 months ago. This seems rational to me. I get the impression she doesn’t understand. It’s frustrating.
180lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg.
1 magic vanilla shake-80cal. 1 pickle-7cal. 1 egg-97cal. 1.5oz beef-100cal. 1oz onion-15cal. 1 magic chocolate shake-80cal. 1 pineapple Orange magic shake-70cal. 1.5oz beef-100cal. 1oz onion-15cal. spinach soup-35cal. spinach soup-35cal. TOTAL CALORIES-614.
5 17oz bottle water.
.
Late in the day yesterday I started feeling sick. Like I had the flu. All my muscles felt like someone had beat me up. I can’t remember the last time that I ate a bunch of bad carbs and super-fatty foods, I know it makes me feel sick. My lymph nodes were swollen. I’m curious how I will feel today…
A is for Amazing - Me!
It was kinda weird weighing in today. (yes, I know, they told me not to weigh until check-in on Friday. And Stu talked about the benefits of not doing daily weigh-ins. I’m trying…) Although it still reads 180, when you consider all that I ate Friday & Saturday, I was expecting to be around 186 by now. I did weigh yesterday, mid morning and it was 179. That was cool.
I really want this diet to work. I want to be thin again. I’ve been having dreams about when I was thin. Being able to move – lithe. I have visceral fat. All on my stomach mostly. I have some on my arms and some on my back, but mostly on my stomach. When I ride my bike, I have to move my legs to the outside of it. My pedal stroke is not as powerful because of it. When I fire dance, I’m more clumsy and my center of gravity is thrown off. I should be moving in a flowing way, like a swaying belly-dancer. But it is hard to move like that at this weight. And every day, I carry this 40 pound monkey around. I can feel it, awkward, clunky, big.
On the sailboat, it really becomes problematic. There is not a lot of area around the front of the boat. When I crouch down to do things, my stomach it always in my way. Sometimes there is not enough room for me to put my knees out to accommodate my stomach. So I have to bend my upper back in a painful manner. When you are on a sailboat, and something needs to be done, it needs to be done, usually very fast. And the boat is large enough, there has to be 2 of us. I have to be able to do my part. If a sail needs to be uncaught, line needs to be adjusted and cleated in, I’m the one that has to jump up and get it done. If I’m not strong enough, or fast enough, if crouching way down there is impossible for me because the fat is in my way, that makes it dangerous for all of us. Hollywood may cast fat dudes with big beer guts as sailors on their movies, but in reality it is hard for me to move, maintain my center of gravity and get things done with this big stomach in my way.
So I keep having these dreams. Sailing up a hill, past my riders, with my muscles just pushing me up the hill. Floating, like the wind. Feeling as though I am one with the bike. Very stream-lined, compact with my legs tucked up into my chest. Paddling out in to the waves, board skimming across the water. Paddling with the wave behind me to build speed, gently pushing my body up as I gracefully pull in my knees and stand, balancing with ease atop the water, wave pushing me to shore. You get older, we all do. I was ready for that. The slow lost of energy and flexibility over the years. Having to spend time weight training, not to gain muscle strength, but rather to maintain it. Ever-so-slowly reaching a point where you can’t do something really physical because you’ve just gotten too old. But you have all those years of memories from when you did all these things you love, and that makes it manageable.
Unlike aging gracefully, getting fat quickly rips things away from you. The ease with which I cycled, the pushing off my board. Moving around swiftly and gracefully. I haven’t been able to surf since I got fat. I can ride my bike only because I was so incredibly strong before the fat. Fire-spinning you can do with a big stomach. Fire-dancing? Not so much. You need that balance, that flow. I feel as though I betrayed myself because I let it all get so out of control. I really want this diet to work.
180lbs.
HCG shot – 150 mcg levothyroxin – .5 mg alprazolam.
New vitamin supplements. Cleanse supplement. Vitamin D-3 gelcap-2 – 10000IU. L-Carnitine – 1000mg. L-Tyrosine – 1000mg.
1 vanilla magic shake – 80cal. 1 berry magic shake – 70cal. 1 egg-97cal. 2 pickles-15cal. 1 magic raspberry protein tea-60cal. 1 egg-97cal. 1 magic chocolate shake-80cal. 1 egg – 97cal. TOTAL CALORIES – 596
4 17oz bottle water.
Bike ride- 22 miles of grueling hills- 1hr 40min-1188cal.
New diet starts today. I am allowed 500 calories. Today, because of the excessive calories burned, I was allowed 100 calories more. Seems freakish after 2 days of fat-loading. crazy…
I think we’re all in agreement that medication is not a first line of defense against life-long anxiety. As I stated in my last post, I am suffering from ‘cumulative stress’. Something is also wrong with my thyroid. That part will take a while. I went to the Endro Dr and they took 4 vials of blood so they could run a billion tests.
health into their own hands and appear to be making great headway in their quest to live healthy, energetic lives. From what I can see in the blogosphere, more so than most.
It is so fun!!! Here is our lastest solution: Lamictal – use the link to get detailed information, my concern was it has a black box warning about life threatening skin reactions, including Stevens-Johnson Syndrome and Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis. Did you see that? Life Threatening skin reaction.
drugs that cause a life-threatening skin rash or diabetes?????
Where it becomes difficult is you get so turned around, you start to think there must BE something wrong with you. These are professionals, right? Who am I to question them? What kind of demented control-freak am I?
I am one of the few people I know that are so screwed up I can even piss off my therapist. Yesterday was my counseling session. It didn’t go well. She fired me.
