Life After a Year of Caring

I joined a weight loss community called Sparkpeople.com a year ago today.  I wrote this blog post on the website, and wanted to share it here.  As I was writing, I realized how much my life has changed since then.  I was miserable, homeless, and suicidal.  I have made small steps, baby steps, and now…everything is turned around.  This is what I posted today.

 

I was looking at my weigh in report today, and realized that I started tracking a year ago today. On my spark page it says tomorrow, but you know. Close enough.

I have gained and lost, gained and lost weight since I was 14 or 15 years old. I have lost weight (at different times) through starvation, extreme exercise, running, eating only plant foods (for weight loss only, not health), and just not eating right (without actually trying to starve myself).

This, my friends, is the first time in my 31 years that I am doing everything with HEALTH in mind. It wasn’t just about losing weight this time. It was about changing my life, loving myself, and being healthy. May of 2012 was one of the worst times in my life, and I knew that I either had to start changing my life or just give up. Believe me, I teetered on the edge of giving up for quite a bit. I was killing myself with food anyway, so why not just speed up the process?

I have told everyone I get the chance to about Sparkpeople. It changed my life for the better, not just helped me lose weight. I found out that I’m not the only one who would eat until I was sick, and hate myself, and eat more because I hated myself. It’s not that eating felt good; it felt BAD and I felt like that’s all I deserved. Why exercise? I didn’t care, no one cares. Why bother? I drank ALL the time. I felt bad about myself, felt bad about my life. If you’re drunk all the time, you don’t notice as much. I smoked. Because why not? Who cared. I had all of these friends, but I felt like they were looking right through me no matter how much fun we had. What I had were a bunch of drinking buddies. Not all of my friends, but definitely more than half of the ones I saw on a regular basis… Looking at numbers, I would say I have less friends now than I did a year ago, but all of the friends I do have are amazing and wonderful, they are people that I wouldn’t want to go a day of my life without.

My life has completely turned around. I started small, just watching what I ate. Doing a little bit of exercise here and there. I stopped drinking because the calories were out of control…over 2000 a day some days. That’s no good, I wasn’t supposed to be having more than 1800 on the plan Sparkpeople generated for me. So I cut that out from 4 to 5 days a week binge drinking to once or twice a week to once a month to now, where I have a glass of wine or a beer once a month and I’m done. I slowly stopped smoking, because although working out felt easier, somehow I was still feeling out of breath. I started neglecting friendships that were unhealthy, and somehow shedding friends built my self-esteem. My relationships with people are so much healthier now.

I feel so amazing. I love myself now. I can honestly say this is the happiest I have ever been, and it isn’t caused by an alcohol-induced haze. I am so happy I turned my life around. I’m so happy I found a supportive community in Sparkpeople to help me do it. I’ve lost 63 pounds in the past year, but what I’ve gained in happiness and quality of life simply cannot be measured.

…And Wednesday Too

Another day, another dollar.  Just one question, please.

If court sentencing is meant as a deterrent, and not as punishment, why would you fine someone who is already stealing their food and clothing?  Won’t they just continue stealing in order to have enough money to pay for their food, clothing, and now they can sell the items so they can pay the fine??  I’m sure there are some people who will stop once they get caught, but that is probably because of the embarrassment, hassle, and fear they go through, not the fine they have to pay.

But on the other hand, what do you do??  How can you deter theft?  You can’t lock everyone up.  It’s left to loss prevention officers and police presence, I suppose.  Surely if someone has had a brilliant idea it would have been adopted by now.

On to other things!  I have a business meeting in another part of the state tomorrow and Friday. I’m excited to go because tomorrow the weather should be nice, and that will make for some beautiful driving.  I also like staying in hotel rooms, call me weird all you want.  Not nasty rooms, of course.  And this hotel has the best breakfast buffet ever.

I feel like I am leveling out, gearing up for school.  Work has been trying, to say the least, for the past few weeks.  I’m having trouble handling all of it emotionally, but I know I can push through.  I should probably start practicing yoga again, it gave me some “me” time in which I would center myself, clear my mind, and get in touch with how I felt physically, mentally and emotionally.  I definitely miss it.

I’m also getting ready for a shift in how I spend my time.  Of course, school will be taking up absolutely ALL of my free time from October to May, but I am going to start rescheduling myself.

First of all, I want to start spending A LOT more time at home.  This is contingent on moving.  As I have mentioned before, I don’t really have much of a nice “haven” where I live now and I crave it.  I want to start cooking everything and make eating out a rarity, this too is contingent on moving.

As for moving, I can finally see it on the horizon.  I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job cobbling together a budget, avoiding extraneous purchases, and in general getting myself to where I need to be to move. I am at the absolute minimum of where I need to be, but for the first time I’m not leaping with my eyes closed when it comes to financial decisions.  I have found apartments that I like, and I hope to be moved in by the time school starts in August.  I would love to get in there sooner, maybe enjoy the summer more, but it all remains to be seen.  I have to get my money together, and my potential roommate has a lot that he needs to accomplish before he can move as well.

One more hour to gym time.  I’m really ready to burn off some steam today.  Here’s to time flying.

Tuesday’s Gray

I have worked as a “lowly Civil servant” for almost three years now, yet wacky things still happen and I don’t think I will ever cease being amazed.  I have been called every name in the book, and I mean good and bad.  I have been threatened, and I have been scared.  Last week, a “crazy” lady accused me of kidnapping her son…who happens to be a stuffed bear.  She stood at the counter and seriously tried to interrogate me.  At the time, I just politely dodged her questioning.  It was a little funny to me, almost like a badly scripted sit-com episode. Today, she was back, raising all kinds of hell, about pretty much the same thing.  I wasn’t in her line of sight today, but nonetheless I had to listen to her yelling and carrying on.

I have been thinking about it since the interrogation last week, and I have to say I am a bit irritated.  Number one, she has some mental issues.  Past police reports have suggested she “follow up with a mental health evaluation”.  To talk to her, this is obvious.  So is she dangerous?  She was definitely combative today.  As she accused me last week, she has accused police officers of burglarizing her home, has accused attorneys of peeping in her windows, other office staff of covering up rapes.  Its all ridiculous, but should we worry?  Is she capable of hurting one of us?  I really don’t think we should have to put up with it, but what do we do?

It’s just been weighing on my mind, and it is definitely bothering me a lot.  Her coming back today aggravated it and now I’m more than a little upset about it.  I’d go as far to say that if I had the option, I would leave over it.  I don’t have the option though; I have expensive school this fall, and several bills to pay.  I don’t have another source of income, a spouse etc.

Just think about that next time you see a disgruntled, rude civil servant.  The person may BE a terrible bitch or a rude asshole.  But you are probably the 157th person they saw that day.  They may have started out super friendly, and in the best mood.  The first, seventh, nineteenth, fiftieth, seventy-eighth, and hundred and third person they saw probably talked to them like they were stupid and subhuman.  They have probably been called names that aren’t allowed on PG television at least twice.  And someone may have already had them on the phone for twenty minutes telling them a story of Lifetime Network proportions.  I can tell you, it gets to you.  It gets to you in a way that you never thought anything could.  You can have thick skin, but if you punch anything with a blade often and hard enough you will make a dent.

Good Thursday

Everything seems to be going pretty well today.  My plans for tonight may be a little up in the air, but I am nonetheless thinking that the rest of the day will be okay to awesome.  The chief probation officer’s birthday was today so we had some Ni Hao Kai Lan cupcakes from Kroger.  I am eating my lunch of veggie rice right now, yellow frosted cupcake is soon to follow.

While at the gym today,  listened to some excerpts from yesterday of the Supreme Court’s questioning in the California Prop 8 case.  I am developing such a crush on Kagan.  I don’t know much about her, but I like to hear her reasoning and questions.  Smart lady!

Back on the Horse, Back in the Habit

I haven’t been worth much the past few days.  The situation at home isn’t the best; I rent a room in someone’s house.  I am so ready to jump ship but don’t have the money to do so…so I have to make the best of what I have.  One side effect is that I don’t ever cook at home so have been eating out a lot.  Not only do I NOT have the money to be doing this, but I haven’t been eating healthy at all either.  I have really got to get my shit in order.  I’d really rather make all my own food.

So I went to the gym at lunch, and I feel really good now.  I can tell I haven’t worked out in almost a week.   I did 30 minutes on the elliptical and boy was it rough…I felt like I had to push way harder than usual, and my heart rate stayed pretty high.

I finished the soul-crushing red cabled socks this weekend.  They were finished a week and a half too late for her to wear to Gulf Wars (a big SCA event in the Southeast) but I think she will be thrilled to receive them regardless.  I will post pictures of them as soon as I get them to her and get her to model for me.

I’m off on Friday, it’s Good Friday.  No, I’m not Catholic but my boss sure is.  I’m going to celebrate by going to visit my sister and my mom.  Mom and I are going to make a bunch of casseroles and whatnot to stick in the freezer on Friday night.  I think we will have fun, I am definitely looking forward to it!  Work has been absolutely nuts for the past few weeks and this week has been continuing that trend and then some.  I can make it through tomorrow, then three day weekend here I come!