Is this all I Know

Another week has flown by.  Where does time go?   It's been eventful yet stagnant, if that makes sense.   I am feeling mired down in my weight loss journey, feeling as if my life is defined only by this weight loss  journey.  Maybe it's time to look more deeply at those feelings!

Busy Week

Where has the last week gone.   I added a new post last week and then I blinked and here we are a week later!   I honestly think that that older I get, the faster time flies!  I feel as if I have no time for anything and that I'm always on the go!  But that is the way it goes, I guess!

So, my week, what to say?  It was crazy busy as always.    I didn't have a car for a few days as Jason's car was in the shop.   The main thing not having a car messed up was my visit (s) to see my mom.   We got the car back on Thursday evening so I was able to recommence with my visits to her so all is well.

I used my time after work wisely.  I have been trying to split that time down between spending time with Zoe and with yard work.  I feel somewhat successful for the last week as I was able to get a few hours of mowing done in the evenings before Jason came home.  

On Friday I had a day off work. I got the car back just in time for a busy crazy day.  I started at my normal time at 5AM.  The early morning proceeded as normal but at 7:30 I headed out to see my friend.  She had lots of plants to divide, and I was the lucky recipient!  It was so good to see her.  She is a friend that I made whilst doing Zumba and it has been ages since we have seen each other!   I was with her all morning and got home just in time to take Zoe out for a potty break and a bit of a playtime outside and feed her lunch.   I was back out the door by 12;15. I had a few stops in the afternoon and my brother and I spent some time getting an old riding lawn mower to a repair shop.  (Maybe, must maybe we will have a riding mower to help us for a season or two......which would cut down on that 8 hours of weekly mowing!).  I came home and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening planting!  

Saturday, started the errands and groceries and a visit to see momand it was a rainy day so no yard work.   Sunday was the clear day so we were outside working.   And before I knew it, I was back to Monday and heading to work.   It will be another busy week as I have mowing to finish today after work.  I have a few more plants to get into the ground.  And weeds.  I have so many weeds to pull!  And watering...new stuff and potted stuff needs watered.   Summer is here and with summer comes the outside work! I am also committed to training Zoe.  She is a nut case!  She gets so super excited that it is ridiculous.  I have been working on her training here and there.  But I have made a commitment to really focus on a few different trouble spots and really work!   (Wish me luck!)  Plus of course a few nights of visiting mom.  So, another busy week!

Weight Loss

Really? I have been eating pretty healthy.  My calorie count has been spot on, I have been eating lots of fruits and veggies.  I've been drinking water. Exercise?  I am exercising religiously every morning at 5:30AM!   And yet my weight is refusing to budge!  What is up?   I'm incredibly frustrated. I'm exceedingly angered.  I'm disappointed with myself.

Could I tighten the reigns a bit more? Yeah, I'm sure I could.  But what I'm already doing should be causing me to have weight loss.  Yet it's not!  

I am still dealing with a poison rash.   I swear, I get new patches of poison almost daily!  It's like a never-ending nightmare!  LUCKILY, the whole body experience is mostly behind me.  The bulk of the patches of poison that covered most of my body are just scaly and dry, which indicates to me that they are on the way out!  The new patches are usually small and relatively contained.  (The other day it was between two fingers.....today the new spot is on my neck).   Could my body fighting off this poison be affecting my weight?   That is my only theory...so I'm going with it!

Weight Loss is All I Know

I have been writing about weight loss for a lot of years.  Seriously, I started this website/blog way back in the early days of 2006.  I have written over 2500 posts.  (This is post 2546).  I have talked about weight loss a lot.  I have been utterly transparent about my journey and my struggles.  Years ago, I started to write a book about my weight loss and what I learned.  (I have pulled it out and I have been working on it...it's mostly in the edit stage with just a bit more writing to complete).  I had started to compile a collection of my diet-ventures.   It is a collection of stories about the crazy things that have happened to me in regard to this weight loss journey.  Weight loss has become my life.  It's who I am.

But shouldn't there be more to me?  Who am I without weight loss? When I think about writing, it usually tends to go toward weight loss. Years back I started a youtube channel.  It was ironically started as a mountain bike channel....yet my videos tended to sound more like weight loss videos.  Rather quickly the channel became a weight loss channel.  Why?   Because that is what I feel most comfortable with.  Over the last 17 years,  weight loss has become my life. 

But shouldn't there be more to me?  Do I want my identity to be "the girl whose life is weight loss"?    How do I expand and become more because weight loss is all I seem to know after so long.   

Oh heavens: A set back

Well....let me preface this post by saying that just when I feel as if I am getting things under control, something blows up!   

I was determined to start running and my plantar fasciitis kicked in and I had to almost immediately step back for a bit....I wrote about that about two or three posts ago in this post. 

In the last post I wrote I mentioned how I was getting back on track with my eating.   And I actually was starting to see some very early positive results.  Ok in 4 days I saw my weight drop by 3 pounds.  That’s positive!!!   In that same post I also mentioned a bit of poison ivy.

Yeah, about that.  

One of the places of poison (and there may have been a bug bite in that same area) somehow got infected.  This prompted a trip to an Urgent Care because the poison was raging strong and driving me crazy and I had an oozing wound in one of the scratching itchy areas of my leg. 

So...off to urgent care I went.  I came home with instructions to keep the wound wrapped and covered,  a prescription for antibiotics, a prescription for prednisone and instructions to take a picture each time I changed the dressing on my leg so that if it didn’t get better that the doctors would be able to see the rate of spread. (I guess in case it was some flesh eating bacteria!). Oh and absolutely no swimming in pools, rivers or lakes.  

I won’t disgust you with a picture of my infection at its earliest stage when it was still oozing and nasty looking ..but rather after I had been on antibiotics for about 5 days. (Please excuse the legs that desperately need shaved...but shaving over poison ivy and an infection doesn’t sound appealing!)

This happened right as we headed for a little mini vacation  and I was a bit bummed about the no swimming edict but we had a great time and enjoyed ourselves greatly! (Pictures and a recap coming soon). 

So let’s talk about the bad.   We missed some lunches and then would hit dinner starving after a busy day of exploring.  So I overate!   We indulged in dessert every night.  I tracked NOTHING!

I gained 10 pounds in 4 days!   Yes I said 10!

Now this is not an excuse....but rather a hopeful paragraph that HOPEFULLY explains some of this gain.  There  is the female hormonal cycle water retention thing going on. So that could account for a few pounds.    I AM on medication, one of them prednisone which is known to cause weight gain/water retention.   So that could also be part of it. I hope and pray that when I’m off the medication and the monthly ick is behind me once again that some of that weight will drop away naturally. Added to those two water retention problems, we can add in this.... It was also hot hot hot and while I tried to drink a lot, I was going for long periods without the need to pee.  So I know I wasn’t drinking enough.  The first day I went 18 hours...which scared me to death when I realized that it was the next morning and I hadn’t peed since the previous day when we arrived at Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum at noon!   I really worked to drink as much as possible the rest of the trip, (and I never went even half as long without the need to pee  as that first day for  the rest of the time away)  but it was hot....we were outside...we were hiking (mountains) and walking and moving which makes it difficult enough to stay hydrated, but I was also trying to recoup from my first day blunder!  But looking back I know that the 4-8 hours I would go between bathroom trips, while nice while traveling, exploring and hiking  was too far between...and yes that was after that first day and I was very cognizant to make sure that I WAS drinking!

But that said, I know that my eating while we were exploring our world did come to haunt me on the scales!  I’m not going to cry about it...we had a fabulous time and I’m not going to beat myself up!  

I just know that I’m going to work to clean up my eating....drink lots of water (lots!!)....and I’m going to move on!  Let’s hope for an easy recoup but even if it doesn’t drop off, I’m not giving up!  Slight setbacks are part of a weight loss journey!!!