Out of the Fog

It's been a really difficult two weeks. I'm finally feeling almost back to myself, but not quite.  There has been so much stress at the office and at home that I've really been struggling.

In the office we have had several "personnel" issues which I cannot discuss in detail, but suffice it to say that sometimes the best thing is what you wish you didn't have to do.  Anyway at least things are better this week. We took the staff for a "team building" event yesterday. Closed the office and spent the afternoon bowling and having lunch and a lot of laughs. I hope this sets things more back on the right track. So far, it seems to have helped.

My Uncle's funeral was truly the most difficult funeral I've ever been to, and that's saying a lot. That includes the two cousins that died in the Oklahoma City Bombing and the great-uncle killed by a drunk driver a few years ago. Yes my friends my family has had a lot of unfortunate events. This is also the south where funeral are.....freakishly celebrated and death wallowed in and....there is always so much freaking food.  I was thinking the other day that we've had 14 funerals in my family in the last 30 years, which doesn't sound like much, but averages to one every every 2years or so. And of course I've been to many non-family funerals including my BFFs brother killed 6 years ago, this last week also BTW, by a stupid texting teenager when he stopped to help someone one the side of the road.

Why was this funeral so difficult? For one, my Uncle's death was quite sudden. He was someone I saw only a few months ago and he was doing great. Been on weight watchers and lost weight, exercising, blah blah blah.  Plus he was a father figure for me growing up and I spent nearly every summer of my childhood at his house.  I think more than that though was that it was the anniversary of my Cousin's death (not his kid) who really was a brother to me. Add to that the fact that SOMEONE in my family decided that what would be really great is to play recordings of our family singing hymns for the music at the funeral. Recordings which included my dead uncle and several other dead family members singing AND my cousin who died a year ago this week singing and playing the piano.

Oh yes. It was as weird as it sounds. And maybe someday I can listen to that and not feel incredible pain, but I 'aint there yet. I've never ran out of a funeral before or a church service for that matter, but I sure did last week. I felt like I was going to scream and explode so I got up and ran out. Oh, and even in the lobby of the funeral home, you could hear the music piped in so I ran straight out to the sidewalk and spent the next 10 minutes sobbing while my husband watched. (Geez. I'm kinda embarrassed that I even admitted that. Now I sound kinda crazy. Oh well...better to get it out than repress it I suppose.)

So after the funeral we headed back to my Aunt's house where we (me, and several other cousins) proceeded to honor our uncle with a drink. OK, fine....the drink was for me. But in order to lesson the scandal on our conservative baptist family, we imbibed in his office/study. I'm sure the rumors were spreading throughout the family. BUT, I figure when you're old enough to have kids of your own, it's no one's business what your choices are and I'm sure as heck convinced that one shot of rum is not going to send me to hell. 

The good part about the trip to Oklahoma was seeing my family and friends. My cousins and I decided that we REALLY have to stop meeting at funerals. It's the only time we see each other lately. Sad and funny and unfortunately true. My poor son even asked, "Mom, maybe next spring break we can NOT have a funeral to go to, OK?"  Poor kid. This affects us all.

We spent the rest of the weekend in Oklahoma and hung out more with family and friends. We didn't do much. Mainly sat around and talked and watched a few movies. We did go out for dinner one night. None of us had much energy to deal with crowds or going out of the house. Then Saturday my cousin we were staying with got sick, we thought from a sinus infection, only to find out later it is the plague from hell.

So....we returned home Sunday. I had to drive because my husband was driving his new-used car. Yep....during all this mess husband found and acquired a new car. Oh and did I mention that husband was out of town when my uncle died. Yep. So I was alone most of the week. He flew in LATE Wednesday night in time to drive to the funeral with me. So...the car...he'd been shopping for a new-used car. He just wanted something nicer and faster than our old 1998 honda he's been driving. (yeah, now tell me about how rich us doctors are. Ha ha.)  Anyway. He decided he wanted an Audi S4. He started looking online and found one in Kansas City. It's in great shape and has some aftermarket turbo something or others. Anyway...it's the one he wanted and several others did too so he had to go last weekend to get the car. He and son rented a one-way rental on Friday. Drove up to KC and back the same day.

Chaos. My life is Chaos.

So we arrive home on Sunday and I start feeling like crap. Thinking I was just tired and what not, I went to bed early. Woke up that night with chills and fever and OH GREAT. Now I'm sick. I went to work Monday and by that evening I felt like death. Husband comes home from work and spikes a temp. OH GREAT now we're BOTH sick. I missed half a day of work on Tuesday. I just feel guilty rescheduling patients unless I have a fever. If I have a fever, which I did 101, I'm afraid I'm contagious so I go home. Husband is STILL off work. (Must be nice to work somewhere with sick leave.) And as of last night, still spiking fevers of 101. Not the flu, I tested him. Not strep. Just viral icky, icky, savage viral. And my daughter spiked a temp on Tuesday evening. The youngest. She's been out of school the last 2 days.

Today, husband has had no fever. Fingers crossed he's on the mend. Little girl had fever today at lunch so likely no school again tomorrow. I'm hoping she's on the end of it. So far son and middle daughter are avoiding it. (Oh please God. Please, please have mercy) I sure hope it stays that way because I HAVE to see Hunger Games this weekend. OH.....and...I really hate it when everyone is sick. Just kidding....sorta.....

Today I feel almost normal and I'm afraid to even think it or say it out loud. I still have a cough. And I'm using my inhaler and cough drops because it's this constant tickley cough that's worse when I talk a lot and I've been hoarse. BTW....doctors talk a lot. Like All. Day. Long. So it's getting really annoying, but I prefer the annoying cough to the fever, chills, sweats I still had as of last night.

I feel like I'm waking up from a bad dream. My mind has been in such a fog I've been just getting through each day. I finally feel like the fog is starting to lift today and can I say...Yippee? I just want to feel like me again. I haven't weighed. I have made effort to eat OK, but not great and I haven't worked out because between the funeral and being sick I haven't had the energy. (Excuses. I know it.) But I think today I feel better and I'm planning to get up and ride my bike tomorrow morning. My body is craving exercise. I miss my TKD. Gym was closed last week for Spring Break and this week I've been sick. I really want to try to get there tomorrow if I can. Gotta check the schedule. Might be closed for a tournament, can't remember.

Anyhoo....I'm on the mend. Coming Out of the Fog. Thank goodness. I feel like the last month has just been horrible between being sick, the surgery, mad dash to Oklahoma to see my uncle before he died, then the funeral, the anniversary of my cousins death, then sick again.

I'll admit I haven't tracked my food. I've eaten way too many carbs. BUT, I've not had the desserts, even the pies and cakes at the funeral luncheon. (it's the south I told ya)  I did have a coke or two around the funeral, but I'm off that now and I'm back to my water, albeit not to the level it needs to be. But, I'm ready. I'm ready to get busy again. I miss it. I miss tracking and drinking my water and exercising. I miss being proud of my lifestyle and I'm ready to feel better again. I haven't weighed, but I don't think I've put on more weight, but I'm still up from where I was and I want to be there again.

But the best part is feeling the fog lift. Feeling like I can focus again. Focus on my goals and where I want to be physically, emotionally and spiritually.  Good bye, Fog!  Good riddance.

Just Pray

Had a pretty hard weekend. Saturday spent the day with a terrible migraine, likely from the weather change. Didn't do much. Then, yesterday I got a call a little before 7am, new time, that my uncle was in ICU and they didn't expect him to make it. I called Nanny to watch the kids since husband flew out around 7am for North Carolina and his meeting. Called my mom and she and I drove up to Oklahoma. We barely made it there before he coded for the last time. I was there for the last code and when I saw what bad shape he was in and his heart rhythm I knew he wouldn't survive another few hours to wait for his son. I talked to my Aunt and she agreed to stop the code. He was gone a few minutes later.  Most of the family made it there, but one of his sons didn't.  We stayed there most of the day and drove back yesterday evening. His death was very unexpected. He was 64, but pretty healthy. We are all in shock. I spent pretty much every summer of my childhood with him and his wife. He really was a father figure for me and without his influence, I would not have had much of a positive male role model. He was a very good man. Today I'm tired and sad and I still have a migraine, but I'm surviving here at work. Not really thinking much about diet or exercise. Just trying to get through the day.  This is doubly hard since my cousin died a year ago this week. You can read about that here if you want to. Sorry but I can't think straight enough to figure out what else to post. Wish I I had some words of wisdom. Wish I could care about how many calories I've eaten, but I just don't at this moment. Actually I haven't really eaten today. Any way, I'll try to post more later. If you are so inclined, please pray for me and my family.

Do the Work .

Long week this week, but it's already Thursday. It's been a very tough week at the office. I swear some days I just want to go work for someone else where I can just show up, see patients and go home. Then I wouldn't have to deal with employees which is my least favorite part of this job. Sigh.

I've been so busy this week with meetings and such. Between that and the kids I just haven't had time to post.
Health wise my week is going well. Tuesday I ate well and I worked out twice. In the morning I rode the bike, then I went to TKD class in the evening. I had a bad headache and it was hard to get through class, but I made it.  The weather has been changing and I always get headaches when the cold fronts move through. The wind is super crazy here the last 2 days and the pollen counts are super high. Today it's raining which always triggers my asthma and again with the migraine, although it's better now. Of course the rain means pollen counts will go down, but then mold will be going up. Oy!  I hate me some allergies.

Yesterday,  I got up early and rode the bike, plus did some upper body work.  I had a meeting at lunch so I didn't get to workout again at lunch. I was so so so tired last night. I think it is the stress, the weather change and the TOM altogether made me just draggy. I'm still continuing it today. Of course I also realized I haven't been on my iron the last few weeks. I stopped taking it for a bit because my stomach was so upset for a while on all the medications. I guess I forgot to get it back in my pill box. Bummer. That will be fixed ASAP.

Despite my ass dragging, (And my friends, when my sizable ass drags it's a problem) I made it to TKD class today. Of course the day my ass is dragging is the day the Master decides to do extra sit ups and push ups. Yippee. We did 150 crunches and 30 push ups. I made it through all of them. Then we did some punching and kicking speed drills. Doesn't sound like much, but when you do roundhouse kicks for 10 minutes rapidly, your legs get sore. Then pile on the axe kicks, about 20 each leg and now I'm sore. Not to mention the rest of the class. Yes, I was pretty damn sweaty after that. Nothing better than being challenged in a workout and being able to meet the challenge.

Food today has been great, but I'm behind on the water so I'm trying to catch up now. I mean right now as I type I'm drinking my water. Lately I've been religious about wearing my fitbit. I love that little guy. There's something satisfying about seeing how many steps I've walked.  I use it to track how many calories I've burned. I track my intake on my LoseIt app. Now that they sync up my calories automatically show up in the fitbit app and the calories burned in the LoseIt. Before I was manually entering my exercise into LoseIt and it would subtract the calories burned out so it made it look like I could eat a lot more. I think the fitbit is more accurate and it only subtracts off calories if you burn more than they estimate for your BMR (basal metabolic rate).  For instance on Tuesday with nearly 2 hours of exercise, it only subtracted 366 calories whereas before LoseIt would estimate over a thousand burned for the exercise I did. I never ate back all those calories anyway, but this way I'm not tempted to.  But, the scale isn't moving this week. Ugh.  I'm doing the right stuff so I'll just trust it and move forward. Eat right. Move more. That's it.

My youngest is sick again. Poor thing. I think she inherited my allergies and asthma. She has another ear infection. Bummer. This keeps up and I'll have to take her to ENT about tubes. Boo.  On top of all this it is Teacher Appreciation Week or as my husband calls it, "teacher shake down week".  It's the week where we have a theme every day and have to bring some sort of gift or token each day for the teacher. One day was flowers, one a thank you card, one a sweet treat, one day is "favorite thing" day where you bring one of the teachers favorite things from a list of what they like. Sigh. Basically it is just one more thing I have to do or be "Bad Mommy."  I just realized I don't have tomorrow's thing. With 2 kids in school it really adds up to a lot between their teacher and art, music, PE. Crapola. I guess I'll be going to Wal-Mart or somewhere tonight. I hate Wal-mart. Hate it. Maybe I'll just swing by the grocery store and get a gift certificate to somewhere.


Next week is spring break, but we're not traveling this year. My husband has a business trip and will be gone Sunday through Thursday. A mixed blessing. With the kids at home all day they'll be banshees by bedtime. I just pray the weather is nice so Nanny can take them to the park, run them ragged and then I can come home to tired kiddos. I get to sleep in my own bed all by myself. I love hubbie, but an occasional break is welcome.Especially after 22 years together.

I read a particularly good post yesterday by Nanette.  It was regarding the idea that a lot of us have that when we're thin all our problems will be solved. I see this a lot in patients and I've even suffered from this earlier in my life. I thought if I was thin everything else in my life would be easier and fall into place. Fact is being more fit and losing weight has increased the quality of my life, but it hasn't solved all my problems. Those really successful in losing a lot of weight talk about that the hardest part losing weight is the mental part. I'm finding they are not wrong. I am still learning how to change my "self-talk".

Not only that but I've had so many patients think that getting bariatric surgery would solve all their problems. It doesn't. You have to do the mental work. Work on your issues. Find the "real" cause of your drive to eat so much and the source of your stress. You can't avoid it. To be really happy, the WORK must me done. And that work isn't all physical.

She ended the post with this quote which I find very meaningful: 
 One must enjoy the practice as well as the performance or one will spend the majority of the time miserable. Eating right and exercising can be challenging AND fun... not just something to endure until we're thin - because if we haven't learned to be happy by then, the problem isn't weight, but attitude.

I love that.

Just one of those Days.........

The weekend was great. I enjoyed my time with the girls. I didn't get in as much exercise as I had planned, not formal exercise anyway, but I did a lot of running around with the girls. We saw The Lorax on Saturday and it was awesome. We all really enjoyed it, and I thought there was a lot of cute humor.  I wasn't perfect with my eating, but I wasn't terrible either and I kept my calories reasonable. This morning I weighed in and I lost 2 pounds last week. I'll take it. I'm on my way back to pre-steroid weight. I so so so want to see that scale back where I was.

Today has DEFINITELY been Monday. I overslept so I didn't work out as planned this morning. I arrived early at work, but due to situations going on at work I didn't get any work done or my blog post as planned. I brought my workout clothes to work and planned on a run at lunch, but that got blown out of the water by other situations that happened.  Now I have to finish work and likely have to do some from home.  Tonight is Open House at my daughters school.  I cooked pies for the teacher's dinner tonight as I had volunteered to help. No problem for temptation as both pies went out the door this morning. I've had a migraine today and now the loud and crowded school even........boo hiss.....but the girls are so so so excited that I will not dissapoint. That's what medicine is for and YES I took some.

SO with all that, no exercise today which I am very unhappy about, but such is life. I will tomorrow and I have TKD class as well. I will stay on track. And I'm drinking my water. I ended up with a lunch meeting and we went to McAlister's Deli where I had a small garden salad, no cheese or croutons and light ranch and some yummy roasted veggie soup.  I had pistachios for snack. Thank goodness I have them on my desk as I forgot to pack my usual snack bag today. Just one of those days for sure.

That's the thing about the whole "lifestyle change" attitude. Life is like this. You have to roll with the punches. You can't let any little change in routine derail  you. I know in the past if I'd missed the workout and forgotten my snacks, I would've said, "Well, I'll diet tomorrow." and gone off on a binder, especially with the stress of today. OR I would have said, "I'll start tomorrow. I'll be good tomorrow. If I can't exercise, what's the point."  Oh I've heard ALL those thoughts ramble around in my mind in the past. I've said it before and it is so true. I was my own worst enemy. I'm the one that kept myself from achieving my goals. I'm trying really, really hard to change that behavior and reprogram my "self-talk". 

I know it's working because when I got back from lunch there was a HUGE tray of brownies and cookies on the table in the break room. The break room is on my side of the hall which means I walk past it as I'm seeing patients about a 1,000 times a day, no joke.  I saw that tray and thought, "huh" and kept walking. I went in there 3 times to refill my water cup. Didn't want them. Even though I didn't have my usual snacks. Even though I was REALLY stressed today. Even though I didn't get to exercise this morning and my routine was all messed up. It just isn't an option. Those foods are not part of my life now. They just aren't. I'm really proud of myself for that.

What about you? What do you do when the unexpected happens or things don't go your way? Are you and "all or nothing" kind of person?  How do you handle it when your plans are disrupted?

Settling in to routines

Another good day today. Eating was easier as my body adjusts back to where I was before. Last steroid today and I am starting to feel almost normal (whatever that means). I'm back to being cold a lot. The dang steroids made me hot and sweat a lot. Even had night sweats with them. Yuck.

This morning I got up and fixed breakfast for my husband and son. Packed hubbies's lunch. I'm so proud of him because he is really making an effort to eat better. He's not always tracking but he is eating much better and has even lost a bit if weight. He hasn't gotten his act together with exercise but he's starting to talk about a schedule to do it.

He works in downtown Dallas and that is about 45 min to and hour from here depending on the traffic. That means he spends nearly 2 hours in the car each day. Luckily he carpools most of the time. But it does mean that he leaves early and gets home pretty late. He has time and once he sets his mind to it he will realize it. We all have time if we want to. Time is not an excuse not to exercise. There's always time for the important things and I'm pretty sure adverting death is important. He just hasn't got his mind around it yet. I've offered to get up even earlier and work out with him. Just waiting on him to make up his mind.

After getting husband and son off I went upstairs to hit the bike. I'll admit my legs were a bit sore, but I was able to keep up with the program and above so I know things are coming back.

After the bike, shower for me and the girls. Got dressed. Dried hair. Makeup. Blah blah blah. Girls to school. I had egg substitute with veggies and a small packet of oatmeal. 325 cal with my coffee

After dropping the girls at school, I took the car to get it washed and spent about 30 min cleaning it and vacuuming it out. THEN I went to work. No wonder I feel like I've worked a whole day already by the time I get to work most days!

Work was busy this morning, but very slow this afternoon so I had time to catch up of some paperwork.

I went to TKD class at noon and it was a hard one! They worked us out but good! 120 crunches, 20 push ups and the usual other warm ups. Then we spent 30 straight minutes kicking and doing kicking drills. Yikes! My legs are sore from getting back at it this week and I'll bet it will be much worse tomorrow. Despite how strenuous it was it felt great and I was able to do it and breathe well. That's a wonderful change. Been a while for that.

After class, I went home and showered and had lunch. I ate a huge salad and the small piece of salmon left over from last night's dinner. Then back to work. I'm sure it will rain tomorrow since my car is nice and clean. Plus I've had a headache this evening so I can feel that cold front marching across my forehead.

I am so glad tomorrow is Friday. The boys are camping this weekend and I'm looking forward to a girls weekend. I'll have some chores but we will be spending some time just hanging out. I'm sure they'll be movies and nail polish involved at one point or another.

The big thing is to avoid the temptation to eat crap. In the past with no other adult to witness I might have succumbed to a binge. But I think I'm ok as I am really ready to stick to healthy eating AND it's been so long since good food tasted good I'm really enjoying my fruits and veggies!

The big question is when I'll be able to run again. I want to run tomorrow but it will depend on my legs. I'll be biking in the morning and I've planned some arm weights as well. If I can, I'll run at noon and if not I'll shift that to tomorrow. I'm definitely sore in lots of places but I'm enjoying it. I see it as almost a reward for doing the right stuff. Scale is moving downward thank goodness and I'm hoping for a good loss for the week on Monday.

I'm thinking a lot about P90x and I really want to try it I think. But time is an issue and it would require some shuffling of my schedule. Have any of you done it? I know it's hard but I love a challenge.

Anyway I hope all of you are wrapping up the week as a success. Now to just continue that through the weekend. Thanks again for all of your support the last several weeks! 'Night all!!