Hi there, friends! It's been awhile since I've posted and I wanted to give everyone an update. I am officially back on track. I switched it up and cancelled my WW membership because I found an app called iTrackBites, which lets me use the original WW Smart Points that I had such success on. While I have had a few setbacks with an allergic reactions (had to be on a lot of steroids), and shark week, I have to say I officially feel like the mindset is back.
This week found me with my strongest resolve yet. My daughter's birthday was Wednesday, I carted tons of cupcakes to her school, picked up more cupcakes to take to dinner at a local pizza place...and I DID NOT have one! My food scale bit the dust, so I ordered one from Amazon, it came in and I am getting into the habit of weighing food, as I've been told it is the most accurate way to track what goes into my body. As I get used to the iTrackBites I am focusing on listening to my body for when it's actually hungry. I am also focusing on eating more whole foods than processed-I definitely still eat processed, but will be working on phasing out or find more healthful alternatives to what I have. Mostly,I am striving for balance. There's no way I can completely eliminate those foods for the rest of my life. I can, however, improve my relationship with them and eat them occasionally.
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This has to be the hardest thing I’ve ever written or shared here, but I know I need to share this to move forward and hopefully others that are struggling or have gone through this can somehow benefit knowing you are not alone.
Obviously it has been awhile since I’ve shared anything here. I’m not sure where to start to explain my absence, so I’m just going to be honest. I had a miscarriage that began on November 28th with what we believe was twins. My hormone levels have been all over the place throughout December and continue to be. (Thanks to my thyroid and PCOS and whatever else may be going on). I will soon begin testing to figure out my issues and hopefully see if we can try again successfully. Honestly, my heart is just broken over this loss and it’s been a lot harder to get back to my normal this time than after my first miscarriage. While I was emotional, the hustle and bustle of the busy holiday season allowed me to go on auto pilot to get everything done between Christmas, Church, and work. I poured all my thoughts and mind into planning everything and kept putting my feelings off. I call it robot mode. After putting away all the Christmas and slowing down to take in the silence, I sat in an empty room. The grief crept in. At first it was a small trickle, then it turned into aching waves. Lately it has become overwhelming. In the quiet moments, grief will always be there. Grief doesn’t care who you are or how educated you are, what kind of car you drive, or how much money you make. My heart just aches for what could have been, instead of yet another empty chair at our table. Right now I’m working my way through this and getting myself into the right headspace. I have gained a lot of weight back, I’m not worried about that, I will conquer it again. I went from hardly having sugar to eating all the sugar, well and everything else. I am back and focusing on living forwards in 2019. With my anxiety I am one that tends to become stuck in grief, so it’s important for me to look and live forward. I’ve also decided I’m going to spend this year unabashedly loving people and showing them how much I appreciate them. I just cannot bear the negative and sadness I’ve been in any longer and don’t want to leave anyone that may be there as well. I figured I would follow up my last post with my weigh-in from this morning and a recap of what being back on plan has felt like this past week.
I began Monday with intentionally planning my meals and also making time to prepare fresh food. I made eggs every morning this week with turkey sausage. I focused on getting protein while also not driving through for fast food. The result was not choosing to eat a high carb/sugary breakfast that left me energy drained and crashing half way through the morning. Lunches were either homemade unwiches (lettuce wrapped turkey roll ups) with cottage cheese and pickles or just turkey roll ups. When I was off plan I had been ordering from local Mexican restaurants. While you can make some great choices from each place, I was choosing, once again, higher calorie and tons of food. I noticed that I wasn’t as exhausted after eating and had great energy. Dinners were varied throughout the week and you can see pics each night on my Instagram. I kind of cycled carbs and faced my fears when it came to certain foods. I used to get so afraid to eat certain foods and felt like I would villainize them if I had a gain a certain week. This week, I had rice with my shrimp taco bowl and I measured and tracked it. I was amazed at how full it kept me. I realize now more than ever the importance for me to face my fears when it comes to food. Another thing that I think helped me with dinners was changing it up. Many times I get stuck eating the same thing because I think it “works” better than other foods. Then I would get burnt out and just give up. This week I focused on making sure I made time to cook and changed up the menu. My plan is to continue focusing on making sure I don’t get “stuck” only eating certain meals. Snacking has always been my downfall. I will let myself get too hungry on the way home from work and by dinner time, pick up something greasy from fast food to “snack” on. This became known as “first dinner.” Now I bring an apple or something to tide me over. I will focus on keeping good real food snacks around. This past week I also utilized healthier food finds that were lower point to fulfill cravings. One night I had a hankering for sour patch kids, so I had Smart Sweets Sour Blast Buddies. Other nights I saved points to make a delicious pumpkinny dessert. Exercise-wise, I focused on fulfilling daily steps. This week I plan on implementing daily walking. This will be a mental challenge for me because usually when I introduce exercise I gain. I realize now, I have to focus on what’s going to make me healthier in the long run, not just get me a loss for the week! All in all, this week I feel confident that I made healthier decisions, mentally and physically. I wanted to post this recap to kind of journal my feelings for the week and so I could look back when I going through a rough patch and reframe my mind. Hopefully if anyone else out there is running into the same issues, I can help them. My plan for next week is to continue on my not eating out through the week. I do reserve the right to have a meal out on the weekends, but on plan. I also will continue to remember my Why. This is the post I thought I would never have to make. I have lied to myself about being able to take a break and not track. I lied to myself thinking I've been cured of binge eating. I've gained weight. 33 pounds to be exact, since June. Yes, I had a dental procedure and have been sick so was on a lot of steroids and antibiotics-which with metabolic syndrome, thyroid issues, and pcos alone make me retain tons of water. More than that, though, I have eaten everything in sight. Absolutely everything.
Lately, I have started my mornings out with the best of intentions, but I haven't been backing those good intentions with any sort of action, so at any moment of weakness, I find myself giving in. It's easy to stay motivated in the morning-I wake up ready to tackle the day and track my breakfast. As the day wore on, staying on track was made impossible by not planning and packing my lunch. I would order what "sounded" good (a cue for emotional eating). When my kids extracurricular's hit, I didn't plan again, so we ate out. At first I made good choices, then I didn't. Honestly, I had become so frustrated after losing 100 pounds. I still had over 100lbs left to lose to get anywhere close to goal. I pouted and ate, then I forgot about my why. I forgot that I started this journey close to 400 lbs. I forgot that I couldn't put on my own socks. I forgot that chairs with arms and restaurant booths were my enemy. I forgot what it felt like to only watch my family form the sideline of life rather than playing with them and enjoying them. I forgot about the labored struggle to just breathe and how hard and painful it was to just exist at 400lbs, let alone live. I don't feel bad or embarrassed that I have such a large gain, I feel angry and motivated. I look into the abyss of what life was like at 400lbs and I am not ready to go back, I am ready to fight back. I am drawing the line with this gain and I am throwing my anchor. There's no more feeling bad about how much more I have to lose-no more looking back at all. I will only be looking forward. Today, I am going to be intentional: I am Meal Planning. I am drinking my water. I am tracking my food. I am going to exercise. I am going to remember my why. I am OWNING my journey. It's not enough for me to have just come this far, my family deserves a mom that is healthy, I deserve to be healthy. This is me not letting myself slip back into the darkness that I was once in before, because being in the light means actually living. My name is Sarah and I've lost 67.3lbs. Are you having any of the same issues? Are you ready to restart your plan-any plan? Let's do this. A lot of people have messaged me and asked me why the backwards life? It’s hard for me to explain, with just a short reply, so I’ve written this for you all to help explain what I’m trying to accomplish by using The Backwards Life.
Have you ever just been stuck or in a rut and just felt like if you didn’t do something, right then and there you were going to lose your mind? That things could not stay at status quo anymore in your life, you need more? I was there and, as a creature of habit, I have found that I am there constantly. The first time this happened, I was single and had just graduated with my Bachelor’s. I had moved back home and was contemplating my next move while working as a teller at our local hometown bank. Every day I was doing the same thing…up at the same time, wearing the same clothes, running the same transactions, eating the same foods, going home, going to sleep, then repeat. You get the picture. My soul became restless and I yearned for adventure-Any kind of adventure at all to get me out of this rut. One Friday evening before getting ready to head out to the same hangout, I looked at my roommate and declared that tonight I was going to do everything backwards of how I usually do it. I meant to say opposite, but it came out as backwards and so it just stuck: the backwards night. The rules were simple: whenever I am presented with a choice, I’m going to choose the opposite of what I usually would choose and see what happens-disclaimer here, people, if you’re going to do this, please keep in mind to do this within reason! Everything started out as it normally did back then. In our small town there wasn’t a whole lot of trouble we could get into. We all had a favorite local hangout, so we would meet there, talk, do some karaoke, eat, then head home. The backwards decisions started small: do I want to sit with him, do I want to go out front, what do I want to order, what do I want to sing? Progressively, the decisions were bigger until the best one: On this particular night my roommate had given me a ride downtown thinking that she would be able to give me a ride home…not realizing her boyfriend had planned on her giving him a ride home in the totally opposite direction. This became my first decision: did I want a ride with them for that long, or wait… or just grab a taxi? Usually, I would just hang out and wait. This time, I decided that when I was ready, I was just going to get a taxi…why not? This doesn’t seem like that big of a decision, I know, but for this small-town girl stuck in her ways, it was my first time in a taxi. I made the phone call and about half an hour later, a blue taxi-van showed up. Our taxis were not at all like the Uber’s and Lyft’s of today. This van had seen much better days and had a suspicious smell of puke, but nevertheless, I jumped in the front seat and the taxi driver immediately asked me in her sweetest voice if I minded that she picked up a couple other ladies- her “regulars” she said, on the way. Whenever I thought about even taking a taxi, I always thought I would want it to be only me, but this time, in the backwards spirit, I told her sure, lets pick these gals up! We pulled up in front of one of the bad parts of our hometown and one of the rougher bars. Two older ladies loudly bounded out of the front door laughing loudly and stumbling. One opened the passenger side door where I was sitting and yelled aww, you’re in my favorite seat-can I sit there? In the backwards spirit, I got out and moved into the back of the van and shared the bench seat with the other lady. Both ladies seemed to be having the night of their lives. Both ladies also seemed to take right to me, within minutes I was their best friend-they loved my hair and kept trying to run their fingers through the curls and getting their hands stuck, they also loved my outfit…and they simply couldn’t handle that I was single. So, every red light we hit, the lady next to me would roll open the sliding door and yell at guys in the cars next to us- “hey, are you single??? Want to meet her???” My shy self would slide down into the floor of the van waiting on the light to turn green, so we could move. Of course, we hit every red light that night on the way home and of course it landed us next to the same big blue truck at every light. Also, of course, every time the van was stopped, the sliding door was flung open and the lady sitting next to me almost fell out yelling at the guys next to us- “Hey!!!!!” She would scream over their music. The volume on the music would lower and their windows would slowly roll down and she would start her diatribe about how they need to meet me. At this point I was basically a liquid on the floor of the van. Then I heard a guy say “okay, I’ll meet her.” I jumped up and waved and shook my head noooooo behind the screaming lady. It was too late, she screamed, “Meet us at the American!!!” Then she turned and looked at me and said, “You are going to the American with us, right?” At this point I’m not even sure that I could’ve said no to these ladies, so The American it was. The American was a local restaurant of great lore. I don’t ever remember eating there during the light of day, but at the stroke of midnight, the food magically became edible and everyone would eat there before heading home. These two ladies told me they had to have a hamburger, I made small talk about an omelet and they cackled at me. I was really beginning to take a shine to these ladies, they always laughed at what I said. We made it to the restaurant and it was packed. They opened the door and the room was suddenly quiet. A lot of people I knew were there and they just kept looking between me and these two ladies, trying to process the situation. I gave them all a shrug, as if to say, yeah this is happening, and they got back to eating their food. We muddled through the crowd to find a place to sit. The lady that had tried to set me up kept peering at the door as though she expected the boys to come in, I didn’t have the heart to tell her there was no way they were coming. After finding a booth, I slid in and both of them sat across from me and right next to the checkout wall that held shelves of candy. One of the ladies stood up and went over and grabbed two fistfuls of Butterfinger candy bars-I remember this so vividly because she held both fists up wherever she went. At one point, she was walking excitedly outside the restaurant and then back in repeatedly with Butterfingers in both hands (I’m talking at least 5 bars in both hands). Then she walks out and red and blue lights begin flashing through the front windows of the restaurant. I can hear her screaming…she is still screaming as she opens the door, Butterfingers still in hand, and screams we’re all getting busted!!! Next thing I know, the lady still sitting across from me is out the door in seconds along with every single person in the restaurant. There I sit, the only person in the restaurant at 3 a.m. with a cup of coffee. I’m sitting there in a daze when our server shows up with two hamburgers and an omelet. This lady has probably seen it all before. She looks at me and looks around totally unfazed and refills my coffee. I sat and ate the most amazing omelet I've ever had then I pay for all our food and take two hamburgers to go. I walk out to where we left the cab and it’s gone. Can’t say that I’m that surprised, what I paid in hamburgers, I saved in cab fare. A friend came and picked me up. Flash forward 14 years to 2016, I was stuck in a rut again. I was overweight, sick, exhausted, and unhealthy. I joked around with my husband that I didn’t need a backwards night to get out of this monumental rut-I need a backwards life! I knew then that this was the key for me. I had become too comfortable and complacent and I knew that applying the backwards philosophy to my life to get myself healthier would work. The changes started slowly-normally I would eat junk, but instead I’m going to have an apple. The old me would sleep most of the day, the backwards me is going to walk laps around my kitchen island or park further away from the store. The old me refused to go to a doctor or take care of myself, the backwards Sarah is proactive. 100 pounds lost later, there is no more backwards Sarah, she is me now, just Sarah. I have a lot more to lose, for the first time in my life, I know that I will do it. XOXO Sarah **Warning: this post addresses infant loss, if you’re sensitive to infant loss, please do not continue reading**
In the early stages of my weight loss I downloaded My Fitness Pal (MFP) and set a goal to lose 2 pounds a week. I felt like that was realistic given that I was so overweight. (What I did not understand at that point was I can weigh and control everything that goes into my mouth, I can track and control my steps, but I cannot control how much weight I can lose weekly.) This mindset of thinking I could control the number on the scale brought me tons of anxiety and shame that I wasn’t losing as fast or as much as I felt I could be. I am so thankful that today I have learned that I need to focus on habits and not the results. I lost 17 pounds on MFP and I was starting to feel so much better. I knew this was barely enough to get to my ultimate weight loss goal, but I was proud that I had made progress! One day, I noticed that I seemed swollen around my ankles and other changes in my body and I just knew I was pregnant. I took a test and sure enough it was positive. Ten weeks later, I miscarried. I was heartbroken and I was down for the count. I remember googling “what should I expect during a miscarriage,” desperate to mentally prepare myself for what was to come. Nothing I found could've prepared me for what I felt during this time. I expected to feel immensely sad, I did not expect to feel guilt and shame The shame I felt for even being pregnant when I was so overweight, the shame of feeling like my body had forsaken me, the guilt and shame of letting my family down weighed so heavily on my heart that I didn’t sleep for days on end, crying through the night while the kids were asleep so that I could have a brave face when they were awake. My chest felt so heavy that I could barely breathe every time my 4-year-old insisted there was a baby in my belly and I had to explain it all over again. I felt like I had aged 20 years in 5 days from sheer exhaustion. Blessings in the form of a loving husband that held me throughout this time and of a family that circled the wagons to help us get through flooded our lives. Strong, caring women that had been through the same pain, some multiple times messaged me on Facebook and text me and told me that I wasn’t alone and that it will get better. My Church family opened its arms, and the ladies were full of hugs and comfort the first Sunday morning back. There was a lot of frustration with God at first and I had a lot of questions for Him that I know will never be answered. I just couldn’t understand why things like that happen to anyone. Deep down, I knew that while God cannot always protect us from bad things happening in our lives, he will walk beside us and carry us through them. I know that more now today than ever because that is what He did for me during this time and times before. I just had to trust Him. Grief is such a cumbersome thing. When you are in the beginning of it you see no end. Then suddenly one day you wake up and realize that it’s time to move on, you cannot live there anymore in grief. There is guilt at the beginning of moving on from grief, but it gives way to relief. There will always be waves of grief triggered by the smallest things, like a sleepy baby at the supermarket, but eventually you bounce back a little quicker, you can breathe and celebrate what could have been. Moving on doesn’t mean you loved any less, it means you understand having to love yourself to move forward. Wherever you are, it is never God's intention for you to remain suspended in grief. Moving forward for me meant focusing on my health and doing so seriously. The OBGYN I met through the experience had me in and asked me if I wanted to try for another baby. I was honest with him and said I am not even going to think about having another until I am at a healthy weight and feel healthy. He said he understood and said he could help me get healthy if I was serious, to which I replied I was and let’s do this. My first step was a round of bloodwork and labs to check all my hormone levels, thyroid level, insulin level, and A1C level. This is where the red flags began going up. My insulin levels were through the roof, my thyroid levels were way out of normal parameters as well. After this, my physical, and exam, I was diagnosed with Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), hypothyroidism, and insulin resistance. My Doctor prescribed Synthroid and Metformin to help with my levels. These diagnoses explain so much about what had happened to my body and having these answers helped me move forward more resolutely towards getting healthy. PCOS is a type of hormonal disorder. Hypothyroidism is an issue where your thyroid is not producing enough hormones. I felt like my body had changed so much after having my daughter in 2012, I knew something was different, but being a new mom, I put everyone else ahead of listening to my body. PCOS, insulin resistance, and thyroid issues mean that, for me, weight loss is going to be hard, but it will happen. It will just take time. Now that I know it will take time anyway, I decided I need to focus on developing healthy habits. After talking with my Doctor about the best approach nutrition wise, I asked what he thought about Weight Watchers. He said he loves it, so that is what I decided on. I credit this Doctor to saving my life. No one else took the time to really see me and my problems further than my obesity. He looked at me and saw me. He treated me as a human being that needed to know what was going on with my body and that it wasn’t just because I was overweight. Because of him, my Husband and I both joined Weight Watchers online and began our journey together. Having answers is a relief. Now that I know what’s going on with my body, it helped me to know what I needed to focus on to repair it. I had lost 17 lbs before joining Weight Watchers and my Weight Watchers beginning weight is 379.2lbs. If you’re reading this, I want you to know that you are not alone and it is your turn for answers. Find a Doctor that truly sees you, listens to you, and will help you on your journey.
397.7 is a number that has plagued me. Every time I looked in the mirror, looked at my tired squinty eyes, red face, and heard my labored, wheezy breathing, all I could see through all of it was that number. 397.7. I had reduced myself to this number and every bad thing that I have heard people say about me: She’s a dog, keep her chained up, she said to my Husband. She’s ugly. She’s a monster. She’s a fat**s. Sawah, she says you’re fat…it goes on and on. I kept eating those words and before I knew it, I became full of their hate for me. I binged on anything and everything and I stepped on the scale one day at 397.7lbs. I cried. I hated myself. Everything hurt. My feet, my knees, my back, every joint, every muscle, my brain…my heart. 397.7 pounds. Mentally, the once positive person I was had been replaced by negativity and darkness. I could tell the person I had become was chasing away the people I loved. The weight was taking its toll and life was passing me by. In September of 2015, my body was beginning to hit its limit. I was waking up with my face swollen beyond recognition, my lips were so huge they began to crack. I was on round after round of steroids; shots first, then step down pills, which fueled my binge eating and hate for myself even more. This went on for months. To everyone around me I tried to be happy-go-lucky Sarah, but inside I felt like a prisoner of my own body. In December of 2015, my body hit its limit. I had binged the whole morning on the 2-and-a-half-hour trip out of town to shop with family. Once there, I became so sick, I thought I had come down with a stomach virus. I couldn’t stop sweating or throwing up. Every time I thought I had reached the bottom of my stomach, there was always more. Even though I was so sick, I was prepared to eat as much as I could at our traditional dinner at a Tuscan restaurant. That was my mindset, I was out of control and I couldn’t stop. I was so sick though, I couldn’t hold more than a small sip of water. My stomach hurt so bad, I joked with my Husband that it was because I was using those stomach muscles I haven’t used in years. That night as we drove home, I had to hold my belly and brace for each bump but waves of pain would still reverberate through my body as sweat dripped from my face. I remember my Husband getting ready for work, “please let me take you to the hospital,” I heard him say. I was too stubborn and embarrassed that I had let myself get this big. The last thing I wanted to do was go to a hospital where a doctor would think my issue was only my weight—I was still in total denial. I told him I was going to give it time, but I held back from him that the pain in my abdomen was so great that I was to the point that I couldn’t breathe in all the way. He left for work and my Mom came and sat with me. I could see the concern in her eyes. I finally broke down and admitted I was having issues breathing and she took control at that point, getting me to the E.R. From there it was a whirlwind. My doctors and nurses were wonderful and treated me with such respect and care, and they explained-When I had been on round after round of steroids for three months due to the swollen face, they had masked issues I had with my pancreas. I had pancreatitis. Had I waited much longer to go to the E.R., I wouldn’t be here today. When you’re in the hospital, you have a lot of time to think about things. There were moments of panic when I was alone, trying to comprehend what was happening. Between the pain meds and antibiotics, I would have waves of clarity. What was I doing? God has given me this beautiful life, this body, and I’m just wasting it all! I have two beautiful kids and a man that would walk through fire for me…it was my turn to walk through fire for them and for myself. I remember praying, with tears rolling down my cheeks in the dark hours of early morning. I asked God to change my heart; to help me remember and recapture the light I had all those years ago before I let the world in, before I valued what other people thought about me over Him. I woke up that next morning a new person and I haven’t looked back. Yes, I’ve had hard days, but every day I choose to fight for myself. And so, my journey began with a starting weight of 397.7lbs. This is not just a journey to just lose weight. This is a journey to get healthy…A journey to love myself, a journey to live. I’m writing this for those that have my same issues…I don’t want you to drive yourself as close to death as I did. I want you to see and remember your value and your power. I want you to know that this life is a precious gift. I want you to know that you can do this. |
AuthorHi, I'm Sarah-I'm Just a girl obsessed with Weight Watchers! I'm using faith, family, friends, and humor to navigate my journey to a healthy life! Archives
May 2019
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