My Weight Loss Journey is Over

Losing weight for a wedding is easy.  Losing weight is never easy. 

This isn't my first blog post on weight (read the other one here). Who knows, maybe it'll end up being my last.  That'd sure be great. Weight is something I've struggled with since high school.  My weight would go up and down (usually based on how much soccer I was playing at the time).

To recap, I lost a ton of weight in college, and managed to keep it off throughout grad school.  But, then I hit 26 and my metabolism decided to lay down and die.  And I started dating a guy, and we ate out a lot, I suppose.  But, I'd kind of always done that.  I was essentially addicted to fast food for a very long time-- starting in probably middle school.

It was pretty much all I ate--even through grad school.  Even when I moved to LA and lived on my own-- it is so easy (no cooking, no dishes), and honestly it's pretty delicious.  But, study after study has shown that it's terrible for you.  It seemed I didn't care.  And then...I got engaged.  

And I set about the business of losing weight.  Which certainly wasn't easy.  In fact, it was pretty hard.  It wasn't until January that I really started getting serious about my weight loss. I joined weight watchers (which made me feel like an old woman), and that really helped! I lost like 15 pounds, and then hit a plateua for like a month where I wasn't losing anything.  So, I switched to low carb-- and I ended up losing a grand total of 23lbs.  I was 2lbs shy of my goal, but I would take it!

It was funny how easy small things were-- even walking around Disneyland in the heat minus 10lbs made things easier, which I found kind of fascinating.  Seeing myself every day, I didn't really think I had lost that much weight/it made that much of a difference.  But, then I showed an old picture of myself to a coworker (that was taken about a year ago, actually), and she was shocked at how much weight I'd lost.  Then, Tom found a picture of us going through the venue, and it became extremely clear how much weight I had actually lost. It was pretty apparent!  It's absolutely not necessary for women to lose weight for their wedding days, and I don't want it to seem like that's what I'm suggesting.  But it was imperative for ME to lose weight for my wedding day--and I'm so glad that I did. It enabled me to be confident in my gown on the wedding day, and I didn't even really spend that much time thinking about my arms. If you read one of my posts last month, you know how unusual that actually is.

Then the wedding came and went, and I munched down on burgers and fries that day, along with a few bites of some pretty delicious cupcakes. It tasted fantastic! After months of depriving myself, I was so happy to bite into that burger.  Then, on my honeymoon, I ate whatever I wanted as well-- in fact, one day all we ate were buffets!  We were treated to a buffet breakfast at our hotel each morning (thanks Costco Travel!), and we took full advantage of that.  

Long story short: I've been eating pretty much whatever I want for about 3 weeks now, and I am absolutely shocked to learn something...

I am absolutely ready to go back to eating healthy stuff.  I never thought I'd be in that place! I never thought I would crave NOT FAST FOOD.  And yet, here I am.  Planning a trip to the store to make sure I STOP eating fast food because... well, I just don't want it every day. Fast food, I think, is fine in moderation--it's okay to eat the occasional McDonald's or Taco Bell. But I have finally outgrown the desire/craving to have it every single day. It's actually funny how, when you stop eating it and start eating healthy, you essentially stop craving it.  I'm sure I'll always treat myself now and again (hello, weekends!), but I don't want to go back to the life of eating it every single day--even if I could still do it and remain skinny/fit.  It's time to look to the future for other things, and prepare myself. I can't eat like a teenager anymore--and I spent way more time eating like that than I should have to begin with.

That being said, I haven't stepped on the scale since the day of the wedding--and I'm not going to.  Not for a few weeks, anyway.  It's not about the scale, and I know if I step on that little device it will become about the scale.  I don't want that.  At the end of the day (and at the end of a life), it's simply not the number on that scale that matters.  I'm glad I lost the weight for my wedding, but I'm also tired of stepping on it with dread, and giving it the power to ruin my day, weekend, week, or month.  Nothing (and no one) should have that power over you.

My weight loss journey was rough--it took a long time to lose those 23lbs, and I don't want them back on.  But, my weight loss journey ends here.  It's time to start a new journey, instead. It's no longer a journey about weight--it's now a health/happiness journey.  Which, I think, is better.  And more sustainable.

Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome

I went to the doctor today.  I sat in the waiting room feeling so nervous I thought I might actually throw up--when I got back there, I started sweaty and breathing quickly.  Turns out, I'm terrified of the doctor.  I've never had a particularly bad experience at the doctor, at least no specific event that I can pinpoint and say, 'yes, that is what led to this White Coat Syndrome.'  All I have is a series of frequent, frustrating doctor appointments in my past.

As I was discussing my apprehension with the doctor, I said to her "When I was younger, I had Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome," I added "I'm not sure if you know what that is," and she said that she did. I was amazed-- and immediately transported back to my show choir classroom when I was 16 years old.  A Junior in high school, I was sitting on the steps in the room clutching a piece of paper, feeling such utter elation that they finally knew what was wrong with me.

According to my mom, it started when I was about 2.  These bouts of severe nausea and vomiting that were pretty much unable to be explained.  This continued for several years, and I definitely have vivid memories of it when I was older.  I remember sitting in the nurse's office, after having had to run to the bathroom in the middle of class.  I remember the sheer suddenness of the onset.  I could be feeling fine one minute, and the next, I would begin feeling nauseated and in desperate need of a bathroom.

Doctor's visits proved fruitless--no one knew what was wrong with me.  When I was 8, one doctor basically suggested to my mom that I was bulimic. (He asked her 'do you actually see her throw up?). She knew this wasn't the case though--one time, on the way to school, we were almost to the campus, and I suddenly said "I don't feel well," and she started to protest, saying we were almost to school--until she saw my face.  The color had drained from it, and I ended up needing to roll down the window.

For many years, this unknown thing kept following me around, it could strike at any time.  My mom & dad received several calls from me in the nurse's office on various days, and they had to come pick me up because I couldn't stop vomiting.

One time, I was going to Science Camp on Catalina, and I was so excited! But, that morning, I started to feel an 'episode' coming on. Sure enough, it hit.  But, not wanting to let my partner for the Science trip down, I went anyway.  I spent the whole time on the boat sick.  Everyone thought it was sea sickness, and I tried to explain that it wasn't.  Nobody would listen to me.  When I finally got to the camp, the counselors (who thought I was sea sick) didn't really know what to do.  Eventually, I asked them to bring me a chair into the bathroom, where I proceeded to sit in front of a bathroom stall for the next 4 hours while all of my classmates went snorkeling.  I threw up about 17 times (yes, I used to keep count). After the episode was over, I crawled into the top bunk and sipped some ginger ale the counselors had brought for me and proceeded to sleep.  Luckily, the next day I felt better, and the trip ended up being great by then.

The sickness itself was terrible--nobody likes throwing up, and having done it so much as a kid, teen, and young adult, I like it even less.  But, what was even worse was the fact that no one knew what it was.  We went to see so many doctors, and nobody knew. Finally, my primary care physician sent us to go see a specialist. I remember feeling hopeless, though.  I knew that no matter what tests they did, they wouldn't know what it was.

Nevertheless, we went to the specialist.  I had to eat radioactive oatmeal for one test, and the other I had to drink a huge thing of barium.  The barium was the worst.  The oatmeal was kind of fun--just tasted like regular oatmeal.  But the Barium?  Awful.  To this day, that day remains one of the worst days I've ever had. Barium is chalky and gross and terrible all around.  I remember not being able to do it, crying to my mom-- she got mad at me (side-note: years later, she had to drink Barium, and immediately apologized to me for getting so angry), and I just cried 'They're not going to be able to figure it out anyway, so this will just be for nothing!' Finally, I got the barium down. They took a couple pictures of my insides--and then the barium wasn't digesting fast enough, so they made me drink something else that tasted exactly like bile.  More tears, more pictures, and finally a few days later we were called back into the specialist's office.

I was right. They hadn't found anything wrong with me from the radioactive oatmeal and barium.  But, the doctor handed me a printout and said "I think you have Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome." He explained that the diagnosis was new, and that not that many doctors were even aware of its existence.  As I read the printout, and read through the symptoms, I felt so happy.  I had all of those symptoms--and they finally knew what was wrong with me!

I told everyone who would listen at school (no one really got the gravity of the situation, or at least they did not appear to, but that didn't really matter).  For years I had suffered with this thing that didn't have a name, and now it did: I had Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome.  They don't really know what causes it--different theories are around, one of which says that a traumatic head injury can cause it, another says a traumatic birth can cause it--but it had a name for me, finally, after years of not knowing what was wrong with me.

I don't really suffer from episodes so much any more, though I always have a sensitive stomach, and seem to be more prone to nausea than most-- but I spent years with this nebulous thing hanging above me, and now I wonder if that has any sort of bearing on the severe "white coat syndrome" that I experience now.

Back when I was first diagnosed, there were few resources for me, which is probably why I clung so desperately to that little printed page from the specialist.  But, now, with the advancement of the internet, there is a community out there-- there is an association! There's a board of directors! There's fundraisers! The Mayo Clinic AND the CDC list the condition.  

Even though I'll probably have white coat syndrome for the rest of my life--I am so glad there's a community out there talking about cyclic vomiting syndrome.

To learn more about Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome (CVS), go here: CVSA

*also, probably the last thing you want to do after reading an entry about CVS-- however! New food on the food page! :D

Weight a Minute

This is a hard post for me to write.  Even harder than my depression blog.  This post is about weight.  I've always struggled with my weight--well, no, that's not true.  As a child, I was pretty gangly and really skinny.  My senior year of high school is when I began struggling with my weight.  I've never been a healthy eater, but that year I guess the fast food & french fries caught up with me.  I remember being very depressed and generally unhappy about my weight.  I was still playing soccer, but not as much, and playing with friends after school had turned into extra curricular activities such as drama and mock trial, lending the perfect storm for an expanding waist line.

I was very self-conscious about it.  Looking back at pictures, I was definitely not as fat as I thought I was.  In my head, I was huge. In pictures, I wasn't even really chubby, just slightly heavier than I was comfortable being.  Then came college, and the Freshman 15--I gained that, and probably a little more.  I carried that around for pretty much all of Freshman year & through the summer.  Again, looking back at pictures, I remember feeling much fatter than I actually was (weird how that happens, huh?).

My Sophomore year in college, I decided that enough was enough. I was tired of being overweight, of feeling really self conscious about myself.  I don't know when weight became such a huge defining thing for me, but somehow it had.  I committed myself to losing weight-- I started going to the gym, watching what I ate, and I started losing weight.  Everyone kept telling me how great I looked--and I felt better about myself, but I still kept seeing 'fat!' when I'd look in the mirror.  From my perspective now, I like to say 'it was so much easier back then! all I had to do was go to class, the gym, an easy job at the library, and eat healthy food at the Commons!'

But, there is a different truth than that.  One I gloss over.  One I don't talk about.  Yes, I was going to the gym, and I was watching what I ate, but I was not being healthy.  I had an eating disorder. I would eat a 90 calorie snack, and a half of a sandwich (like the sandwiches you make at home, not subway/quizno's/togo's), and maybe a hard boiled egg.  That's it.  That's all I would eat all day.  On top of that, I would go to the gym 5/6 times a week and run on the treadmill for at least an hour, if not more.  If I couldn't go to the gym, I would freak out.  

I didn't know I had a problem, but there should have been some clues.  For instance, I distinctly remember being at work at the library, and finding a 90 calorie snack in my bag. (Special K made these really good snacks that were only 90 calories a pouch--they don't make them anymore, but they were so good. I called them yogurt chips, but I don't know what they were actually called). Anyway, I found a 90 calorie snack that I hadn't eaten from the day prior or something.  I had already had my 90 calorie snack in my dorm room for the day, and I was still hungry (of course I was, my body was basically starving), and I couldn't resist and ate the extra 90 calorie snack.  I was so mad at myself after I did that--I was doing so well, I chastised myself, then you went and ruined it with an extra 90 calories, you have zero self-control! In reality, it was 90 calories. Not that big of a deal--most diets can spare 90 calories here and there.  But, to me, it was this giant thing--it was terrible, that I couldn't even resist (through my starving, mind you), a 90 calorie snack.  This continued on for a couple of months--I would eat normally in front of my family, but at school, I just wasn't eating, really.

And everyone kept saying how good I looked.  And I still looked in the mirror and saw how fat I was.  

Here is a picture of me shortly before my Sophomore year in college ended, when I still thought I was fat:

I'm in the white shirt-- still thinking I was HUGE.

I didn't realize the error of my ways, I didn't suddenly get the picture, I didn't suddenly discover that I was not, in fact, fat. I think I just went home for the summer, and was forced to basically eat normally again, and ended up being healthy.  The remaining years of college, I still thought I was fat, but I didn't go to extreme measures.  I went to the gym about 3 to 4 times a week, and ate full meals at least twice a day (my junior/senior year I pretty much lived off of grilled cheese sandwiches and white rice for lunch).

I went through grad school, and managed to somehow keep the weight off--though, of course, the lingering thought 'you're so fat' was always at the back of my mind.  At one point, after I moved back in with my parents, I remember getting Chipotle, and thoroughly disgusted with my lack of self-control (fast food, again?!), that I devised a plan.  I would chew the food and spit it out, thus enjoying the taste but not ingesting all the calories.  Yes, this is embarrassing to write, and pretty gross, but it's the truth. And the truth is sometimes both of those things.  I sat on the floor of my room chewing pieces of burrito, and spitting them into a grocery bag, which I threw out after the "meal."  I feel unbelievably sad recalling myself sitting indian style in front of my small TV, doing this incredibly destructive and weird thing, thinking that it was my only option.  I did this for a few meals, but it didn't stick-- believe me, I know how crazy this sounds, but I felt such desperation.  I thought 'this could be a solution to your fatness.' Until now, I'd never told anyone about that.

Meanwhile, this is approximately what I looked like at that time:

I'm on the far right.

I know what Body Dysmorphic  Disorder is (read about it here), and there's no doubt in my mind that, at least on some level, I certainly suffer from it.  I couldn't see it then, but I can see it now. I can see it now, looking back at those pictures where I thought I was fat, I know that something in my brain was not perceiving the image in the mirror correctly.

Which is what makes it so hard about the weight I've gained now. For me, the mirror may not be a reliable source of information, but the scale certainly is.  And I'm a good 30 pounds from where I want to be, and at least 20 pounds from where I should be, medically. And it has made me withdraw.  I don't want to see anyone because I've gotten fat, and of course they'll notice, and I'm embarrassed. I don't want to see anyone until I lose the weight.

I keep trying-- I keep leaving details out in my brain about what I did in college and telling myself 'you did it once before!' And I keep failing, remembering that this time it will be harder--to do it healthy will be harder.

The other day, Tom & I had our engagement shoot.  I have been trying (and kind of failing) to lose weight for a few weeks now. I'll do well, and then fall off the wagon.  The evening before the engagement shoot, I was getting really down and depressed--knowing I wasn't going to like any of the photos that were taken of me. Knowing I was going to look like a 'fat cow' (my brain's nice words to me) in all of them. Knowing that no matter what I wore, I would be hideous. I went to Target to try to find something to wear, and I stopped to get a soda, and somehow ended up with a small cheese pizza.  I wasn't even that hungry-- I was just sad. And mad. And frustrated at myself.  I ate the piping hot pizza (as I type this, I can still feel the burn on the roof of my mouth), and hated myself even more with every bite.  When I was finally finished, I thought for the first time ever, very seriously about throwing it up.  I thought about it the entire time I was walking around Target.  I didn't do it, but I was seriously thinking about it-- and that was scary.  It is scary.  I've had anorexic thoughts, I've had severe restriction thoughts, but I've never had bulimic thoughts. Not real ones, anyway. Growing up, I had a disease called CVS, which basically caused me to throw up a lot--since then (perhaps, apparently, thankfully), bulimia has not been an option for me. So, the fact that it was nearly an option for me is genuinely frightening.

I went home and tried on outfits and felt increasingly hopeless, eventually having a meltdown and throwing on my pajamas, while trying not to cry. Eventually, I settled on some pants, a cardigan, a tank, and snazzy shoes.  But the process was very eye-opening.  I am always saying that I can't be too hard on myself when I make a mistake, but the truth is that I am hard on myself.  Too hard on myself.  And this might be why I so often spiral out of control. Instead of being like 'oh well, I ate three mini kit kats, I'll do better next time,' I turn it into 'of course you ate three mini kit kats, you have zero self-control, no wonder you're fat. You won't do better next time.  In fact, you shouldn't even try to lose weight because obviously you can't do it, you'll just fail, so you might as well just have two mini butterfingers and a bag of microwave popcorn.'  It sounds funny, and I actually laughed just now typing it, but in the moment, it really, really isn't.

So, what do I do?  I want to lose weight-- I need to lose weight in order to be healthy.  But how do I stop this?  How do I stop beating myself up for failing the impossibly high standards I set for myself? I never go with 'baby steps.'  And I think that's what I need to do-- I need to get out of the mentality that it doesn't matter if you walk a mile unless you also starve yourself.  It's not true.  If I can change my thinking, I can lose this thirty pounds, and I can do it the healthy way this time.  

But, only if I can build myself up, instead of tearing myself down. Or, in other words, undo a lifetime of habit.  I'll let you know how that one goes, but I don't really know how to start.

The Art of Moderation...

The Art of Moderation, or Why I Do Not Deprive Myself Too Much or Push Myself Too Hard

Hi, my name is Natalie, and I have high blood pressure.

Whew.  Felt good to get that off my chest.

I'm 27, so this whole high blood pressure thing is not good, to say the absolute least.  It runs in my family on both sides--my mom and dad both have high blood pressure.  I'm sure the fact that I've gained a little weight doesn't help, either, but even before that happened, I had high blood pressure every time I went to the doctor.

Part of it, I'm sure, is the cuff they put around my arm--how tightly it has to squeeze definitely stresses me out.  Plus, being in a doctor's office for any reason is definitely not fun--I can feel myself start to get so nervous that I begin to feel sick to my stomach, though I'm not even really sure why.  Nothing THAT bad has ever even happened to me at the doctor's office.  I'm just a weirdo, I guess.

When they take it manually, it's lower--but, still high.  Just not AS high.

Anyway, for months now, I've been saying I'm going to do this and that, but let's be real for a second: it's hard.  It's really, really hard to eat healthier, exercise more, and generally be healthier.  And it's ESPECIALLY hard when you work night shift, like I do.  Most people can go home after work and cook a nice meal (even though they're tired).  I can't do that.  I don't get home until 1am, sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a little later, and the last thing I want to do is cook.  On top of that, you're not even really supposed to eat after 7, 8, or 9 or whatever the rule is anymore.

So, a few months ago, I found myself eating out a lot--it's convenient, and although it's not cheaper, it's definitely a time-saver.  I've definitely cut back on that in the last two months, though, and instead I've been turning more to frozen meals which are cheaper and also more convenient.

But, I've not deluded myself into thinking that these packaged meals are healthy.  Not by a long shot.  I'm well aware that they are terrible for you--the overly processed food from a box that sits in the freezer for months can't be good for your body, not to mention that most of these frozen meals pack in the sodium to make up for a lack of taste.

So, despite the fact that I've only been (usually) eating a frozen meal a day, and a few snacks or sandwiches for lunch (also packed with sodium in the form of lunch meat), I haven't really committed to a low-sodium lifestyle, which I think I really need to do if I want to get healthier and be able to have a child someday.

But, that is gradually changing.  Last week, when looking through Ye Olde Internet for some low-sodium snack options, I came across this blog (www.SodiumGirl.com) with which I was totally unfamiliar.  I spent a bit browsing the page, looking at some recipes, and then decided to order her cook book through Barnes and Noble.

Then, I decided to try and take this a little more seriously.  I went to the gym Friday - Sunday, and am planning on making that a regular thing that I do.  It's weird because by Sunday, my stamina running was already improving.  I was able to run a 12:43 mile, which isn't very impressive, but the previous two days, I was hovering around 14 minutes, closer to 15.

The cookbook arrived yesterday, and I went through and wrote down some ingredients I'll need, and am planning on getting them this Sunday, then making a meal plan.

Sodium Girl's story is actually pretty incredible (not to mention inspiring!)-- she went into complete renal failure, she was on a transplant list and everything, and then she decided to really make a change for the better, and she was taken off the transplant list, and her kidneys pretty much revived themselves.  She studied low-sodium diets, made a habit of reading labels in the store, and has really turned things around.

When I ordered her cookbook, I didn't know this story-- I didn't know that she completely changed her life like that.  I find this feat pretty amazing, actually, and I hope it continues to serve as an inspiration to me to do better, to be healthier.

My first step is to try to stop the excuses-- I've been giving myself them for months (Oh, I can't go to the gym because I'll be too tired, or Cash will be sad, or I'm too sore from going yesterday).  Or, the excuses for why I can't cook (I work night shift, I don't have time, heating stuff up in the microwave causes the nutrients to be destroyed) etc., etc., etc.  I'm gradually giving myself fewer excuses, and one day I hope to not have any.

I'm going to have cheat days-- at least right now.  I have to.  Hence the title of this blog-- the short explanation of the blog title is this: I know Me.  

The long answer is that pushing myself too hard at the gym, or depriving myself completely of things I love (In-N-Out, movie theater popcorn) won't work. It just won't.  Not for me right now.  So, I have to start small.  I have to make healthier choices when I feel I can-- I have to deprive myself when I feel I can, and not when I feel that I can't.  And, so, that's what I've been trying to do this week.  I'm snacking on almonds (raw, unsalted) and craisins (0mg of sodium) as I write this, and when my boyfriend and I went to the movies on Sunday, we shared a medium popcorn instead of a large.  

Doesn't sound like much, but it adds up-- and, I'm confident I'll get there someday, and hopefully soon.

Until then, I will continue to make healthier choices when I can, and to not deprive myself of too much, too soon.  I will continue going to the gym, and trying to be more active, but I won't kill myself when I go--I'll do what I can, and push myself to do a little more than that, but not tons more.  At least, not right now.  

Truthfully, my will to do this is still a little fragile--but, the good news is that I get that, understand it, and am not ashamed of it! Which means that I might really be able to do it this time.

If you're doing any diet restrictions/exercise plans, leave me a comment and let me know! I could use some moral support.