This past week I allowed hate, frustration, and stress get the best of me. I have been having a very hard time adjusting to the 'corn free' lifestyle, but this past week I finally exploded - I am SO tired of being the only parent (of the three of us) that is researching safe foods, contacting companies about their production/packaging, spending HOURS shopping, etc, etc, etc! It isn't my daughter's fault, she didn't ask to have this allergy, but it is very frustrating to spend all of this time making certain she isn't going to have an allergic reaction just to have her biological dad turn around and give her foods that have been forbidden while she is visiting him (some of her reactions are immediate, but most are delayed GI reactions - so he never has to deal with them). I had a brief breakdown which involved me telling off both her biological father and my husband, binging on ice cream (my ever faithful friend), and eating fast food (which I then paid for by suffering from horrible stomach pains). All in all, my week just plain sucked. I have not, however, completely succumbed to the Dark Side and will be back later this week with a positive update!
It is always better to start with the positive - so, I did GREAT accomplishing my goal of going to the gym! I went three days last week - a workout with my trainer, walking the track with another preschool mom, and reigniting my affair with the elliptical machine (followed by a brief circuit training workout). I skipped my trainer session yesterday due my little one being sick (I can't put her in child care at the gym if she is sick) and didn't go today because of an evil lightening bolt that is living in my brain and trying to escape through my left eye socket. It is only Tuesday, though, and I will get in a workout tomorrow and Friday for certain!
I have also been making progress in removing the foods with corn from my house (which is a plus) - my hubby and I have been binging on late night snacks after the kids go to bed (not a plus) and it is quickly clearing my stash of everything my 5 year old can't have. We are now officially out of ice cream (my #1 weakness), 'eating' chocolate (I specify because I have 6-7 bars of baking chocolate still on hand), chips, candy, and flour. I have ordered all of the specialty items needed to replace every day basics in our house and am especially excited about the Daisy flour (one of the only safe brands for those with corn allergies) and can't wait until it gets here so that I can bake bread again (and cakes, cookies, etc - baking is like crack for me). I ate out WAY too many times last week - I had Chinese delivery at my friend's house Thursday, date night with my hubby on Friday, Portillo's while my folks were visiting on Saturday, and all three meals were eaten from fast food places on Sunday (we went to my brother's to work on cleaning out a storage unit while my corn allergic child was at her dad's). Needless to say, both the 3 year old and I felt like death on Monday morning from the grease overload (which we are not accustomed to anymore) - but since no grocery shopping got accomplished dealing with her tummy, we had a salad and tacos delivered for dinner last night. At least I didn't let a little thing like an ocular migraine stand in the way of making dinner tonight! Little things like this give me hope that one day I will actually make REAL progress! All in all, not a good start - but somebody needed to do lousy this week, right? I am certain that my next update will be more positive (mainly because I really can't get too much more off track than I already am). Now I am off to to do weighted leg extensions (the weights being my children) while watching Monsters Inc. with the family! Star Wars rocks! I have written this post over and over a dozen times now - some versions have been excessively long, detailing my life long battle with my weight, others have been short and blunt (kind of like me). I finally determined that, while folks should know that I have been heavy all of my life, it isn't all that relative to where I am at now. This is an early picture of me (only included because of the AWESOME Darth Vader t-shirt) when people thought I had cute chubby cheeks and hoped that I would thin out eventually - their hopes were later crushed! David and I Fast forward a lot of years to June 13, 2009 - my wedding day! I am five and half months pregnant with my second child in this picture - and fitting into a size 18/20. I didn't get much larger in the final months of my pregnancy and it only took me three months following the birth of my second daughter to get back down to a size 16. I maintained that size for approximately six months, and then the numbers on the scale began to steadily climb. I was back up to a size 18/20 and miserable - I was tired of living in Genoa, I was tired of being a stay at home mom, I was tired of being fat, and I was tired of being miserable! Hindsight is always 20/20, and I now realize that I had been suffering from a bout of depression and if I had not been so worried about what people would think of me, I likely could have gotten help and things in my life would not have looked so bleak. Luckily, I was able to shake off my funk and decided it was time to do something for ME - I simultaneously joined the YMCA an registered for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. I was finally motivated and started going to the Y three or more days each week - I worked with a personal trainer, spent countless hours on the treadmill and elliptical machines, and started taking my girls out for walks every few days (some long, some short, some cut really short by crying children). My mood improved dramatically, I started meeting people (like the amazing Barbara Barrett, who allowed me to join her Avon Walk team, Barbie's Rack Attack) in my area, and I started paying closer attention to the foods we ate. Life was definitely looking brighter! Despite all of my hard work, I wasn't losing weight and plateaued at a size 18. When Barbie's Rack Attack participated in the 2012 Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, I was still a whopping 238 lbs - but my fat ass walked 20 miles on day one (6 miles short of the full distance) and the entire 13.1 miles on day two. I was a little disappointed in myself for not being able to complete the entire 39.3 miles, but I was proud of myself for what I had accomplished in only six months time! One would think that after all the hard work I did to train for the Avon Walk, I would keep up my efforts, but I didn't. What started out as a 'break' after the Walk turned into months of sporadic workouts and unhealthy eating habits. The scale slowly crept back up, I was now only fitting into a size 20, and my mood swings were back. It is quite possible that things would have just continued on the way they were if I didn't have a major wake up call due to the health of my oldest daughter. My oldest daughter, Althea, is allergic and intolerant (for those of you that know the difference) to corn and all corn derivatives. We have known she was corn allergic for several years, since she started teething, and thought we were doing a really good job avoiding it. In the past year, though, her breakouts (of hives) have become more and more frequent and her GI issues have become more concerning - so I finally had a heart to heart with her awesome doctor and we came up with an action plan. As of January first, Althea began an elimination diet to try and get ALL corn out of her diet (corn is everywhere) and I have tried to make it so that everyone in the house eats the same things when she is awake/home (when the kids go to bed or she is visiting her biological father - we indulge in unsafe foods). We also visited a pediatric GI to address some chronic problems she has had - and he agreed that they were most likely related to the corn allergy/intolerance and helped us come up with a treatment plan for her to heal the damage her body has suffered. So, now that we know what is going on and are doing everything in our power to 'fix' the situation, I finally have time to focus on me again! This is me today (seriously, I just took the picture - I really do look this scary every day!) - I wear a size 20, weight 253.4 lbs, and can't go a day without at least one can of pop and a piece of chocolate. I have again registered to participate in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer with Barbie's Rack Attack, I have started (as of Monday) going back to a personal trainer, and I am more aware of the decisions I am making regarding food. It is a good start, but there is a very long road ahead that I am hoping doesn't have too many detours. So, if you stuck with me all of the way to the end here, these are my goals:
* to train for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer by working out a minimum of three days a week * limit eating out to once a week (when my oldest daughter is not home) * make our home as corn free as possible - this is more of a 'have to' than a 'want to' * lose 20 lbs by June 2013 * complete all 39.3 miles of the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer on the weekend of June 1-2, 2013 * train for and participate in a 5K run by the end of 2013 * fit into a size 16 by October of 2013 (our first ever family vacation to Disney World!) * lose a total of 60 lbs by January 2014 (at which time, I will reassess my weight loss goals) |
Joslyn is a 37 year old always confused, struggling to be better, eager to learn, Star Wars fanatic, stay at home mom just trying to figure this thing called 'life' out. She spends her days trying to figure out what to feed her five year old (she is allergic and intolerant to corn/corn derivatives) without breaking the bank, playing with and homeschooling the girls, playing chauffeur to the kids, running errands, and working on various home improvement and craft projects. She is loud, opinionated, and brutally honest (which makes her difficult to get along with) – which is why she can accept that over the years she went from being ‘pleasantly plump’ to morbidly obese and needs to do something about it already. She will be incorporating weight loss and healthy eating into her training for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer this June – which she is determined to complete this year!!!
Archives
June 2014
Categories |