In the Beginning

In the beginning,  this blog's predecessor was known as just "Reinventing Andrea".

In those early days of my weight loss journey,  somewhere around July 6, 2010 (that was when my I weighed go my starting weight, but we'll get to that later)I had no idea that in 2016, six years later, I still wouldn't be at my goal weight of 144 pounds.

There are several reasons for that. Not excuses, and I'm not blaming anyone but myself even a few of those, like my stroke back in September. I'm also really bad about hearing "you look fine the way you are, sweetheart," when I'm in a relationship and even though I've always put my health at the top of my list of reasons for getting healthy, I'd abandon ship and swim for the buffet bar.

So, why do I have to blog, post about it and share all of my posts from My Fitness Pal? It's not to brag. It's called accountability. As much as I'm the heavily tattooed black sheep of the family, I also have a small voice in my head that says I have to please people. I know that totally makes no sense. Also, if just one person readingthis blog decides to join me on the fight of obesity,  I very well may have helped saved their life. And while I'm on that subject. I see a lot of memes on Facebook complaining about people posting every time they go to the gym. It takes just as much "energy" to be supportive and click like on their gym posts as it does to share the anti-gym posts. Just sayin'.

Why do I only weigh in once a week? We all know how much a woman's weight fluctuates from day to day because of hormones, ghosts, Satan, etc. However, I can't handle the stress of gaining just .2 pounds in just one day. I'd rather keep up with it from one Saturday to the next.

What was my starting weight? My starting weight was 375 pounds. I can't believe I ever let myself get that big. (Remember on "Whats's Eating Gilber Grape" when the mom said, "I havent always been this way.") It really did seem to creep up on me over night. The weight thing is you don't realize how big you've became by just looking down at your body. Even looking in the mirror  day in and day out you don't realize your size. (I had unconsciously avoided full-length mirrors and only used the medicine cabinet mirror) The big wake up call was when my niece was playing with my phone and took a picture of me. I deleted it as soon as I saw it. Now I wish I had saved it as a before picture.

What do I eat now? I eat normal foods you can buy in a grocery store. I've learned to cook them in a healthy way. My favorite is broiled fish. For side dishes, I like brown rice, carrots, zucchini,   and pretty much any vegetable. In the brown rice I like to sprinkle in a little dried cranberries and the Oscar Meyer Real Bacon Bits (in the yellow bag). For breakfast I have 1/3 cup of Great Value (Walmart) egg whites and either a chocolate zucchini or regular zucchini muffin. I make enough of both muffins to last the month and I use egg whites instead of whole eggs. I have a cup of decaf coffee with a little French vanilla creamer. And I'm back to drinking water all day. It helps to flush out the excess sodium. At dinner I have decaf sweet tea with lemon.

For workouts I do 40 to 45 minute light impact aerobics in the morning and a 30 to 40 minute high impact aerobics either in the afternoon or evening.

Okay, that's it for Hump Day. I hope I've inspired someone to make some life changing choices!

Weigh In Day

So today wasn't great at all. I was so excited when I woke up, but that excitement quickly faded.

After taking care of my morning bathroom business, I stripped out of my pajamas and stepped onto the scales. The numbers made me mad; I had went up by 1.8 pounds. Not a big gain, I know, but I think I know why.

The following is about to be TMI and if you want to stop reading now I'll understand.

I'm not making excuses, but since I started working out again my period has taken a leave of absence. As of right now, Aunt Flow is 21 days late BUT a cramp of child birth contractions proportions woke me up in the middle of the night. Right now I'm pretty crampy. And I've notice over the past few days I don't have much patience with the boys. So maybe water weight gain is the reason for my gain this week. I guess we'll see next week when I weigh in.

I have no idea what to title this lol

So we survived the weekend!

If you remember back when this blog was Reinventing Andrea, every Saturday I would post my weigh in results. I plan to do that again but this past weekend I watched my precious grandson while his parents were in Myrtle Beach for a cosmetology competition, so having my hands full, posting my weigh in results slipped my mind.

Now that things have calmed down (or as calm as they'll ever be in this house) I'm pleased to say that I lost two pounds last week.

I'm even more pleased to say that I've lost a grand total of 113 pounds. I'm definitely on the right track again.

I think it's safe to say

That this one pound loss is enough to keep me going.

BUT....even if I had only lost .1 when I stepped on the scale or if I had gained when I stepped on the scale this morning, you know what? I'd keep on keeping on because I've survived so much - from shitty relationships that could've killed me to a mild stroke. Ain't no keeping me down.

And I'm Back

Yep, I've posted similar blog posts before about how I'm making my comeback and blah, blah, blah, but I had a lot of toxic negativity going on and it took me having a mild stroke to realize how bad the relationship I was in to end it.

All of that is behind me now and two weeks ago I started religiously logging my foods on My Fitness Pal and I've started working out again too. I'm not doing anything too strenuous because between the fibro, bulging disks, and torn rotator cuff I'm in some pain most of the time.

I'm eating healthier than I was but that's a work in progress. I'm gonna eat the foods and do what I was doing before because it was working for me - it was me that stopped working for it.

Happy weekend!

Ugh

I'm a little worried that depression is setting in. I'm discouraged more than ever.

Many times before I've said that when I started this journey in July of 2010, I knew that weight loss is more successful and has longer lasting results if Donne slowly but I didn't think that it would take this long. Yet here it is,  almost 5 years later and I'm still 96 pounds from my healthy goal weight of 144 pounds.

To be honest, when I weighed 375 pounds I didn't have near the health problems that I have now. I'm on 10 mg of Zestril daily for high blood pressure. Five years ago my blood pressure was always 120/80. Now that I'm 135 pounds lighter, I'm lucky if that bottom number is under 100. Wheb I went to the ER for my most recent ankle injury, the bottom number was 124! (I do know that pain can make your blood pressure higher.)

And that leads me to my next issue. When I was at my highest weight, I never had accidents. Now, I'm on a first name basis with the staff at the local ER. In the past year I've had two sprained ankles  (and those were within less than three months of each other), torn cartilage in my right knee that still hurts often, my back hurts 99 % of the time, and so many other aches, pains and injuries that it's ridiculous.

Then there's all the random illnesses. I've had everything from a tick bite that still itches after the tick was completely removed nine months ago, sinus infections, bronchitis,  two rounds of the flu, and now my period.

Aunt Flow came for a visit on Halloween and is still here. Yes, the bitch is still here. I have an appointment with a new gynecologist on the 23rd of this month to have that looked into. Oh geez, no pun intended. Ew.

Through all of this a lot of my willpower has left. I was winning this battle. I was cooking and eating healthy. Now I honestly can't get enough of Pete's on 25's bacon cheeseburgers and macaroni and cheese. And the thing that's so stupid about that is that I'm lactose intolerant so cheese is a bad idea. And you woukd think the cramps and diarrhea and hours on the toilet would be enough motivation to keep me from eating it, but it's not.

I've lost "it". And the fact that it bothers me makes me believe that maybe, just maybe, all hope is not gone.

Everyday that I'm not able to workout because of my current injury, I feel guilty that I'm not walking or doing an aerobics dvd. I want to workout,  I really do. I want to feel those endorphins kick in. I want to feel proud of myself for getting off of my ass and burning those calories.

I want to not think about bacon cheeseburgers or macaroni and cheese. I want to get back to eating the broiled catfish, brown rice with cranberries, and baked sweet potato fries that I so dearly loved.

I honestly don't like me right now. But I love me enough to know that something has got to change, but I don't know how. It's not like I'm using my ankle as an excuse to not workout.

I went back to the doctor Friday and he explained how seriously injured my ankle is and it's gonna take a while for it to heal.

But I'm scared. I'm truly scared that when I do start working out again, it's just a matter of time until I get another injury. And as bad as the ligaments in my ankle are damaged, it's only gonna take me turning my ankle again for my ankle bone to break because it's not being protected right now. I'm terrified.

This post isn't meant to be a pity party. I'm just being honest.

Falling with style...the sequel

This story starts out just like the other falling with style post.

This past Thursday,  Mark and I drove to Clemson,  SC to check out the Old Stone Church Cemetery. It's a beautifully preserved part of SC's history. The man who Pickens County was named after is buried there. Many graves date back to the late 1700s, maybe even back further than that. I don't know because I only got to spend about 30 minutes there.

We were just taking our time, viewing the old headstones. Mark had went on ahead of me to check out some graves in a brick fenced in area.

The area that is fenced in is probably 20 feet by 15 feet. On one end there is an opening with a step down into the area. I caught up with Mark, attempted to step down and the next thing I knew was I was grasping at the brick wall and then I heard a loud snap. Yay.

Mark helped me up and to the car which was only about 100 feet from where I fell. Mark drove me to the ER in Anderson. They say it's a sprain. Im not convinced. This doesn't feel like any sprain I've ever had and the swelling is only getting worse. Kinda looks like a grapefruit on the side of my foot.

Why do I post this? Am I seeking attention? No. I'm posting this only to say that although I've had my fair share of injuries and illnesses over the past year, I'm not giving up.

I'm not sure what is keeping me from throwing in the towel. But my towel is still right here with me.

And besides,  I'd probably hurt myself while throwing in my towel! 😂

PS - this picture was taken yesterday.  It's worse today and I don't want to gross you out too much!