I think we've hit a slump

I've been in a major funk lately. It started when I overheard my family complaining about all my fitness stuff.  I've touched base on this many times before: I don't have a supportive family. My entire life, usually after being teased in schools or a routine doctor's visit where the subject was my weight, I had my mom promising me that we'd eat healthier, go on walks, and that I'd lose weight that way. It never happened. I try not to be bitter about it, but I guess maybe I am? I'm not sure when I finally realized that this was MY journey and the only way I was going to be successful was to go about it on my own, but at some point I did realize that. I know that I can't blame my family for it entirely. I mean, yeah, better choices would be made when I was a child and I could have carried those healthier choices into my adult life, but I can sit and dwell on the past or I can just let it go and move forward. But anyway, I'm totally alone in my passion for fitness and eating healthy. They don't get my five sets of dumbbells or my aerobic step, my kettlebells or my foam rollers, and so on. And not only do they not get it, they don't try to get it, and that's what is more hurtful than anything else. So when I heard what they said - man. I felt like I'd been stabbed in the chest and in the heart. This came after a stressful week in where my mom had another flare up where she couldn't breathe. When mom is out of commission, I do everything, plus I worry about her. I was already feeling stressed, exhausted, frustrated, and more when I overheard the comments. I was looking so forward to our little getaway.

Our trip to Tennessee was a mess. The Great Smoky Mountain Getaway that promised a pool, a fitness center, pool tables, and only a six minute drive from downtown Gatlinburg turned into a rundown condo complex without any of the aforementioned amenities (including the distance to get to town). Right off it was a bummer. Attempts to go to town and find out that you're paying an arm and a leg to park - well. It wasn't like the previous time I visited Gatlinburg (we stayed downtown that time, so we were a block away from all kinds of cool places and attractions). There we are, two strikes! I wasn't feeling the love from my family, now here I am in a dumpy condo complex with them, and we were all in awful moods. We had one day that was jam packed with activity, but in the end, we ended up leaving a day early.

This last week, we've had more repairs on the house that are all day affairs. On Friday we were supposed to have the final inspection, but he canceled. It's now Tuesday. I just feel like... every time I try to sit up after getting totally knocked down and out, something else comes up. Mom gets sick, but lets sit up and get back up and BOOM - lets tear down the one thing you find joy in. Lets rebound from that and BOOM. Lets destroy the one thing you were looking super forward to! And lets have strangers come in your house and stay all day (I know the house needs finished, but we stopped being a priority for Paul Davis when we moved in. Why couldn't this have been done months ago?? IT'S DRYWALL.)

I'm having such a hard time getting back up. My mom is having trouble breathing again (giving me zero desire to ever pick up the habit of smoking) and my biggest fear is that these upcoming holidays are going to be the last with her. I have no desire to work out, I have no idea what going to happen, and I feel so miserable. I'm having a lot of trouble breaking through this thick layer of ice that seemed to fall on me while I was trying to get up from whatever knocked me down the last time.

Ugh. I didn't make this blog to make posts like this. My intention is to motivate others. But there aren't many places I can verbalize my feeling, my worries, my struggles, and so on. (Facebook is pretty toxic, and, well, yeah, I don't think I have anyone who actively reads this anywhere so it's like making a diary entry without the hand cramps. ha) And it does deal with fitness and nutrition and a healthy lifestyle. Trying desperately to get back on the routine of eating healthy, exercising, and getting on top of my mental health when real life things - family struggles, a sick family member, depression, the holidays, etc., are making it hard.

If you're here, tell me how you get out of slumps?

Operation Floral update

Hi guys! So, remember Operation: Floral? My goal to wear my favorite floral shorts while on vacation in Tennessee, even if I had to wear a pair of leggings underneath??? ;)

Welllll... I'll be honest. I didn't forget about Operation Floral. But I also didn't even try on the shorts before leaving or bringing them with me. Partly because I don't have a pair of leggings to match them and I didn't feel like going out and buying a pair that I'd probably only wear once. And while the first day in Tennessee it was in the mid-60s, the last day we were there (we ended up leaving early for various reasons - the whole vacation in general was a huge bummer) it snowed 2-3 inches. It was beautiful, but bitterly cold. I wish I had thought to even attempt to put them on, but I didn't.

I am pleased to say though, that a few days before leaving, I got on the scale and was at the lowest weight I've been since returning home. I probably screwed that up though with a bit of emotional snacking (it's been really hard getting back in the groove again - it's just been one of those weeks where I've needed to just veg out) and reunification with my favorite coconut rum. Tomorrow some people are coming to work on the house some more and that always throws me off my routine. I think it's partly because I'm so afraid that I will oversleep for some reason and therefore wake up to strange people in my house? Or something weird like that. I'm pretty sure I had a dream about it and never forgot, and that's why on nights like tonight I always struggle to sleep and roll over looking at the clock to see what time it is. So we'll see how it goes, but I'm getting anxious to get back on the routine. My ankles and knees are not tolerating the cold weather right now and that makes me nervous.

Hmm, so what else can I mention in here? I had one week after finishing Body Shred and before my trip and I remember mentioning that I wasn't sure what workout I was going to do - Lift and Shred or One Week Shred? I ended up doing Lift and Shred. I bought heavier weights from Amazon, too, and BOY did I feel it with the heavier weights. I haven't felt that sore in a long, long time! It was great! (And also a little bit miserable. Haha) I only did Level 1 though, but I'm feeling confident that doing this program will make some big changed. I will say though that I am very intrigued by LIIFT 4 and really do want to give that a try. I like that it is four days, which gives me three other days to try new programs. I'm looking at you PiYo, Core De Force, Country Heat, and Turbo Fire! (Why are all these programs Beachbody???) I also bought the Ring Fit Adventure for the Nintendo Switch, and although I haven't tried it yet, I've been looking SUPER FORWARD to playing that. I'll be sure to share my feelings on that as soon as I try it a few times. I'm trying to talk my dad and brother into playing that with me. ;)

In other news, I've got my eyes out for an elliptical (I had one that got lost in the fire, and I feel like the elliptical may be my saving grace in the winter when my pain is way more prevalent) and hoping I can find something during Black Friday. The other night, I was reading another blog written by a friend who is a long distance runner - she doesn't just run marathons and ultras, but she ran the Georgia Death Race, and different 100 mile races. Her blog was so inspiring, it started awakening my, "get out of this funk" senses. :) A few days ago, I was finding it difficult to find a point to exercising with Thanksgiving coming up. (I almost said Halloween. Duh, Jules, that's already passed. But I kept saying Thanksgiving during Halloween so there's that!) I remember a quote last year though though that I'd see in my facebook feeds: "Everyone is worried about what they're going to eat between Thanksgiving and Christmas when they really should be concerned what they eat between Christmas and Thanksgiving." Meaning don't stress about the holidays. Stress in the 10-11 odd months when the holidays aren't here. And by stress, I mean, eat sensibly, exercise sensibly, and love yourself a lot.

It's all a work in progress. <3

Thanks to anyone who's reading!

An open letter to the man who called me fat

An open letter to the man who called me fat while in downtown Gatlinburg, Tennessee on November 11. 

You were going in one direction and I was going in another when our paths crossed, and heard you snarl, “Fat!” as plain as day as you walked past me. I didn’t see you, but I definitely heard you. I turned to my brother, who shook his head and waved his hand as if telling me to wave it off, but I turned around and shouted it was uncalled for. There was a lot more I wanted to say, but you and the woman you were walking with continued on and I was with my family, too. Although our trip to Gatlinburg really didn’t go according to plan at all, I put you aside because I wasn’t going to let you ruin my night. It was already a stressful day. 

If I had stopped you though, I would have told you that I’ve already lost quite a lot of weight and although I’ve gained some it back, I’ve been working extremely hard to get healthy - all around healthy. I would have told you that I’m not sure if I’ve ever been completely healthy when you factor in physical health and mental health. At my lowest weight, I’d step on the scale several times a day and that number is what drove me all day. I restricted my calories and had panic attacks at eating more than 800kcal a day. I worked out to the point where I went months without taking rest days. My feet, ankles, knees, hips, and lower back ached so badly because of lack of rest. Taking a nightly bath wasn’t a luxury but a necessity. My hair started falling out. I was so addicted to a fitness group on Facebook that I kept the tab open all the time reading what other women were doing as their workouts. I was so unhappy, so tense, so on edge all the time. I didn’t want to go out to eat with friends or family. I remember going out on a date with a really nice man and feeling so nervous, not just because I was going on a date with someone, but because I was sooo nervous about eating food that I didn’t prepare and I didn’t measure out or weigh. I remember I had two family functions coming on; one on a Sunday and the another on the following Saturday, and I restricted calories and workouted out so much that when I finally went to the family functions, I was worn out from all the worry, restriction, and working out. I used to pride myself on how “disciplined” I was. I worked out on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day. After years and years of being overweight, or even obese, I was so happy to be significantly thinner. People who never spoke to me before except to make fun of me started sending me friends requests on Facebook, and friends who used to laugh at me and call me fat behind my back sent me private messages asking me how I lost the weight and wanting to know what I did. I would reply back with information on Jillian Michaels workouts and running on the treadmill and how I didn’t really change my diet, I just ate more sensibly. That’s how it started. I may have been physically healthy, but mentally, I was at my worst. 

I would have told you that when I realized that I may have an eating disorder, I couldn’t get help because when you develop and eating disorder when you are already thin to begin with, you go to the hospital. When you develop and eating disorder when you are not thin to begin with, you are a success story. People praised my weight loss, rolled their eyes or raised their eyebrow in confusion when I mentioned an eating disorder. “You’re not anorexic skinny.” “You still eat.” “But too much exercise isn’t a bad thing.” I had to go about recovery on my own. I tried to scale back on exercise by taking rest days. I tried to gradually increase calories and eat around 1200 a day. Weight came back on, but I was okay with it. I was still decently happy with my body and coming to terms that my body may never get to 120, 130, or even 150lbs. I got to 160lbs through ways of restricting calories and working out excessively, never wanting to go out with friends, panicking when family functions happened, but I didn’t want to live my life that way. 

I would have told you that lately, I’ve been struggling so much with my body that I can’t stand to look in the mirror. Buying bigger pants has been an absolute soul crushing experience, and some family members aren’t happy that I have so much fitness stuff. I would have told you that I had been crying earlier that day because I looked very large in all photos that I had posed for at the wax museum. I felt ashamed and embarrassed. I wanted to delete the pictures immediately. 

I would have told you that when I stood outside my house one year ago today, watching flames shoot out both attic windows, that my thought wasn’t about all the things I was losing but how I was going to get so fat. I knew that when my house caught on fire a year ago that it’d be really tough to keep up with the schedule I had before. Luckily, we lived in a hotel with a small gym and I was able to do Jillian workouts in my hotel room, but it was hard going from a large house to a small hotel suite. When my mom got sick, I found it so hard to get back on the bandwagon because I was wanted to spend all my time with her. 

But most of all, I would have told you that it’s not okay to comment on someone’s body and it’s not okay to call someone fat. There are dozens of reasons why someone’s weight might be less than appealing - whether they are overweight, ideal weight, or underweight. PCOS, thyroid condition, steroid use, other medication, a genetic predisposition to weigh more or less, do I need to go on? There are things about my best friend that I don’t know about, let along some stranger I walk past on a busy, touristy street. I would have told you that it feels so much better to be kind, to say, “Hey, nice sweater!” (The girl who took a picture of our family at the wax museum complimented me on my sweater!) or just not say anything at all, because I was a stranger. You may think that calling me fat would make me want to go run on the treadmill or buy a Jillian Michaels DVD or get Beach Body On Demand. Maybe you thought it’d motivate me somehow. Sorry buddy, I’ve been doing that since August 2012, when I first joined LoseIt and pulled out the DDR pad to play the game. 

I would have told you that there is more to someone than how they look on the outside. There is more to me than the outside.

Love, 

the woman you called fat in the evening of November 11 in Downtown Gatlinburg, Tennessee,
also known as Julie.