I did it!

I got off my butt and despite my MS fatigue and 'niggling' Trigeminal Neuralgia took Bear for a walk. Or a trek. LOL I'm not sure what you call a five (plus) kilometre walk.

I also overdid it. Our walk took us 10 minutes longer than usual and at the half way mark I really wasn't sure I had the energy to make it home. Although it was good to be out in the sunshine, and I had the chance to do a lot of thinking about where my head is at, I still feel like eating unhealthy foods. I rather fancy fish 'n chips for dinner, pancakes for breakfast tomorrow and lots and lots of chocolate. White chocolate. You know the Cadbury Melts? I'd like to sink into a bath full of them LOL! And all of this leads me to the conclusion that my hormones are raging. I had forgotten that mid cycle I am generally more fatigued than usual for about 10 days and that I have the most insanely strong food cravings. Now all I need to do (like it's so easy .. not!) is do my best to resist the food cravings and keep on keeping on.

Oh and the thought occurred to me as we were trudging home, I've lost 30+ kilograms now which probably (definitely really!) means I need to start downsizing my portions just a little LOL!

Well I'm off to have a somewhat late lunch, to contemplate our pile of ironing and, just possibly, spend some time creating in my studio.

Alz

:)

Its not all sunshine and rainbows

So far I've mostly posted about the past. I think to understand where I am today you need to know a little about how I got here. Today's post though is about where I am right here and now, today.

Yes I'm still in my pjs (which are now too big) and yes (as indicated by the clock on the wall) it's almost 11am and I am as despondent and tired as I look. I'm in my studio, sitting at my Mac when I should be out in the sunshine walking Bear (who is gazing at me reproachfully). I don't want to get dressed. I don't want do any of the things I should be doing (including tackling our mountain of ironing). I want to forget about my new, healthy lifestyle for just one day, today. I want to stay in my studio and be creative. I want to scrap. I want to play with paints. I want to start an art journal. I want to be a healthy weight already. I want. I want. I want.

Why? I'm disappointed in myself. That's why. I'm disappointed I let myself become as big as I did. I'm disappointed I haven't taken responsibility for my own actions before now. I despair of ever reaching a healthy weight. This journey feels never-ending, which it is, because its about a lifestyle not a short term solution. I'm disappointed I caved at Easter and thew caution to the winds. Easter. Oh do let me tell you about Easter.

We went to my parents on Easter Saturday. Because they are elderly, and I wanted to be in control of what I was eating, I catered (so to speak) for our day at mum and dad's. I made a batch of banana, chic chip muffins for afternoon tea, a delicious sweet potato, pumpkin and onion soup for dinner, and a pavlova for dessert. The soup is a very healthy, and delicious, recipe. Obviously the muffins and the pavlova, less so, although equally delicious LOL! I didn't plan on having a muffin or a piece of pavlova. But I did, and that was okay. I'm allowed to eat whatever I want. I hadn't had anything along those lines in such a long time, and I had no plans to eat anything else like that for a very long time. I was on track with my exercising, so I figured "why not?" and allowed myself to indulge just a little. After all, it was Easter.

The next day started well. GB and I went for a long walk with Bear despite Melbourne's gloomy, grey skies and cold, wet weather. Danger struck on our way home. We had a 'Caroline Springs' moment. For anyone who lives in Melbourne and watches a modicum of television I can guarantee you have seen an advertisement for moving to Caroline Springs and 'living the dream'. Whilst we don't live in Caroline Springs per se, we do have lots of 'Caroline Springs' moments LOL! We were nearly home when friends who have also moved to our area saw us out and about and called us over to pop in. They were having the kind of day most Melbournians have on gloomy, grey, cold, wet days. They had the TV on and were relaxing, lounging about. We stayed, chatting and watching a little of the 'ancient', religious movie that was on the box, before heading back home. Big mistake. Huge. It was both comforting and relaxing to take a load off and on our way home everything felt alright with the world. Everything. I had slipped into that relaxed, "I'm okay and can do whatever I want without any consequences mode". In that moment I was living a Utopian existence.

As we walked home GB and I laughed about how it was the kind of day for hot pies with sauce, for snuggling up together on the couch and watching old movies and eating munchies. Without conscious thought (because honestly, I didn't want to dissect it!) I was all "come on, why don't we do that?", "let's steal a day and just relax". Two sausage rolls, one vanilla slice, three cinnamon donuts, some hot chips for dinner, some M&Ms (albeit not many) and three DVDs later we had "stolen a day" and "relaxed".

On Easter Sunday I weighed 121.9kg. Ever so close to dropping below 120kg. On Easter Monday I weight 123.7kg. Despite walking Bear for more than an hour every day since and riding the exercise bike three times, covering about 20km over 30 minutes each time, and scrupulously eating ever so well to compensate, today I still weigh 123.7kg. I know that I'm at a period in my menstrual cycle where I don't lose weight and that in a few days I can expect a large drop. I know that if I just keep on slogging through and putting in the effort I will see the results. I know that if I just get off my butt and take Bear for a walk in the sunshine I will have more energy for the rest of the day and I will feel so much better, emotionally. But right here and now, I'm over it.

This journey I'm on is difficult. Trying to lose more than half your body weight and set yourself up with a lifestyle that will help you to maintain that loss is tough. Staying on top of what I eat, my activity levels, my mood and positive outlook? Well that's enough on its own. Throw managing my MS into the mix and it becomes tougher than tough. Some days it feels nigh impossible.

I saw my neurologist yesterday for my regular six month review. She is overwhelmingly impressed and proud of me and what I'm doing. It feels good. Although there has been some mild progression in my MS for the most part, everything I've been doing to create a healthy lifestyle has had a significant, positive impact on my MS. I am stronger and more able than I have been for a very, very long time. But if I want to continue to see improvements in my MS I need to keep moving. I need to, as my neurologist said, "keep doing what it is I'm doing". That does not include staying in my pjs all day and creating in my studio. When I reach a much healthier weight than I currently am, perhaps I'll be able to afford to take a day off to just create, but right now I don't have that liberty. I need to keep moving. I need to keep motivated. I don't need, at the end of the day, to continue to feel disappointed with myself.

On that note, I'm off to clean my teeth, throw on some shorts and a t-shirt and take Bear for a walk. If you've read this, thanks for letting me get this out on paper (so to speak) and hence, work through what's been bothering me today. Yes I may be 123.7kg today, I may be 123.7kg tomorrow, but one day I will be 75kg. That day may be a long time coming, but I know that, one day, it will.

Alz

:)

Giving up is hard to do

Come the end of 2005 I had had enough of the constant battle to lose weight. I was over it. I wasn't depressed about my weight but I was sick and tired of always being aware of how very big I was, the impact my weight was having on the quality of my life, the constant judging by others. It was just too hard. So I gave up. I resigned myself to the fact that I was morbidly obese and in all likelihood would be for the rest of my, most likely, short life.

In the process of giving up I accepted my weight and size and vowed to simply live my life as healthily and as happily as I could. Instead of constantly dieting, I decided to focus on nutrition and eat 'power foods'. Foods that would help me to live as long as I possibly could. Foods that were good for my heart, and known for boosting the immune system and fighting cancer. Instead of walking my dogs Hayley and Max every day because I had to exercise, I started to walk them because I enjoyed walking, I loved spending time with them, and it felt great to be a responsible pet owner. Instead of doing a set number of laps of the walking track at our local reserve to build up the kilometres, I started walking further afield, exploring my local area. Before I knew it, without even trying, my weight started to drop.

I could scarce believe it. I was losing weight!! I wasn't dieting. I wasn't going to the gym and doing exercise videos at home. I wasn't stressing about what I could and couldn't eat and what I should and shouldn't do. I was simply enjoying a better quality of life. A healthy life. A happy life.

All those years of dieting were finally paying off. But in the most round about way imaginable. Everything I had done until this time had provided me with the skills set I needed to make a healthy lifestyle change. In six months I lost 25kg. Without even trying!

So what did I do differently?

I stopped counting kilojoules, and started using common sense. Previously, I had gone through my personally collated recipe books and calculated the nutritional analysis of every single recipe I cooked with. I had split the recipes into two folders .. one contained the low fat, healthy meals, and the other folder contained everything else. We mostly only ever ate from the low fat, healthy meals folder and I would calculate my kilojoules intake throughout the day. I continued using my healthy meals folder because they were the meals we enjoyed, but I stopped keeping track of the kilojoules. I also strayed from the healthy foods folder. If we wanted to eat take away, we ate take away. I made conscious decisions about what I was eating. Rather than eating something because it was on the plan. I ate according to what made sense. I wanted to be healthy and I wanted to enjoy life. For me, that included enjoying food. All foods. I decided I could eat anything I wanted. Nothing was forbidden. No foods came with a side serving of guilt. If I wanted to have say, a vanilla slice, it was up to me to make the decision about eating the vanilla slice. They're not healthy, but they're delicious. The choice was mine. I was the one in control of what I was eating. Not a weight loss consultant, a doctor, a programme, or a diet. It was me. Taking control was empowering. Funnily enough, more often than not, I chose not to eat the vanilla slice!!!

I switched some foods, and added others, based on their nutritional value. I had been using Devondale Point One milk to make my breakfast smoothies because it was the lowest fat, highest calcium milk I could find at the time. I changed to a low fat, high calcium soy milk because soy is important for heart health. If I was going to be morbidly obese for the rest of my life I needed to do whatever else I could to protect my heart. Instead of my breakfast smoothie having just a banana and occasionally strawberries in it, I added strawberries and blueberries every day. Strawberries and blueberries are rich in vitamin C and both are powerful anti-oxidants. I wanted to boost my immune system and hopefully ward off cancer. These were the types of changes I made to my diet. My primary focus shifted from weight loss to eating foods that made sense for good health.

I stopped thinking of walking the dogs as exercise I had to do and started appreciating the quality time I was spending with them. Once my daily walks were no longer a chore I started having flashbacks to a much younger me who loved to be active and play sports and found myself enjoying walking again. What's more, I found myself adding additional activities to my routine. I rediscovered my love of bike riding.

I started telling myself positive things about myself. All my life my father had told me I would be beautiful if only I lost weight. I started telling myself I was beautiful despite my weight. It wasn't easy or at all natural, but I became my own cheerleader and self help guru. I treated myself with respect and kindness. I gave myself permission to love myself, to accept myself. I was who and what I was, and I was a good person. I deserved to be treated well.

I felt fabulous. For the first time in years, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. If I continued on this path, one day I would be fit and healthy and very, very happy. I didn't need to take any pills, count any points, replace any meals, join any groups, sign up for any programmes. All I needed to do was to live as healthily as I knew how and everything else would follow.

Alz
:)

Why?

Why no pills, shakes, points or programmes? Because, quite simply, they don't work. Not long term. Plus I've "been there and done that", for the most part.

When I was about 22  years old, my local GP was concerned about my weight. I knew I was overweight but, from memory, I was a size 18 and looked pretty good for a 'big' girl. LOL if he could see me now!!!! I would nearly kill to be a size 18 again!!! Anyways, he felt that prescription diet pills were the answer. The type of pills that are based on amphetamines and reduce your appetite. I was on them for six weeks before I had my first appointment to check on my progress. Surprisingly, I hadn't lost any weight. He was astounded. I had been eating less as the pills had reduced my appetite, however it wasn't showing on the scales. After much discussion he accused me of lying about what I had been eating and dubiously questioned me as to whether I had been eating in my sleep. Needless to say I didn't appreciate his bedside manner and promptly found a new GP.

The scales tipped over the 100kg mark when I was about 23 years old. I was wearing a size 20 to 22. I was getting married and so I joined Weight Watchers. Like any bride to be, I wanted to look good on my wedding day and, more importantly, in my wedding photos. I lost about 14kg before I started to self sabotage. Previously, I had only ever lost up to 10kg on any diet before the self sabotage set in. Breaking that 10kg barrier was a success. I weighed 101kg (my goal had been to get under 100kg) on the day of my wedding and was wearing a size 18 wedding dress which had been taken in and altered. Despite not being a svelte size 10, I looked good and our photos were beautiful.

I was married. I had already started to self sabotage. It was fairly easy to simply stop attending the Weight Watchers meetings and stop counting points and weighing absolutely everything I put into my mouth. Naturally the weight crept back on, plus some.

After we had been married for a year or two, my weight gain started to become uncomfortable and I joined Jenny Craig. At my first consultation my ideal body weight was calculated as 53kg. At that time I weighed at least double that. I now know I would have been seriously underweight if I had ever reached 53kg. At 168cm tall, and weighing 53kg, my Body Mass Index (BMI) would be 18.8 which would just about put me in the '18' category of "you are very underweight and possibly malnourished". I'm sorry, but what the??? Even though I wasn't aware of the BMI in those days, the mere thought of being 53kg was unsettling. I was never going to be a size 10 to 12. I am big boned and built for strength, not speed! LOL! Despite my misgivings, I started their programme. I don't remember how much weight I lost but I certainly never reached 53kg LOL! Nowhere near that!!! Over time, the expense became prohibitive and I stopped buying the food and seeing my consultant. Of course I regained the weight I had lost whilst on Jenny Craig and the weight gain steadily continued.

Not long after regaining all that weight, my biological time clock started ticking over. I wanted to start our family. I knew I had Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), and although I didn't know it caused weight gain, I knew it would impede my chances of falling pregnant. I also knew I was an unhealthy weight to be pregnant. Where on earth was I going to buy maternity clothes? I desperately needed to lose weight and so asked my GP at that time to refer me to a nutritionist, an actual doctor who specialises in weight loss. I figured that surely they'd be able to help me. Right? Wrong. All the nutritionist did was successfully crush my already flagging spirits by telling me I "was too far gone" and that "the only thing left for me was to go on a Very Low Calorie Diet (VLCD) and replace my meals with OptiFast". At that time OptiFast only came in the form of chocolate or vanilla shakes. Crushed, I went to the chemist and purchased a $100 packet of vanilla shake sachets and a $100 packet of chocolate shake sachets. I tried the shakes, after all we had just invested $200 in them, but they were hideous in taste and texture and did nothing to satisfy my hunger. I had already been skeptical of getting by on only two flavours of shakes but had thought if they tasted okay I could at least give it a go. That wasn't to be and, sadly, many years later when we sold our home and were packing to move, I found those boxes of shakes shoved in the back of a rarely used kitchen cupboard, and lamented not only the waste of $200 but the sign of yet another failed weight loss attempt.

The above is only but a few of my experiences with pills, shakes, points and programmes. LOL I haven't even touched on the multitude of diets I tried over the years. If we gauge weight loss success by permanent, long term weight loss, I was an abject failure. However, every time I tried to lose weight, I learned something about weight loss, nutrition and exercise. Although I eventually maxed out at 155kg, all of my previous weight loss experiences had set me up with the skills and knowledge I needed to turn my life around and lose the weight healthily, and permanently.

Alz

:)

This is me

I was born chubby in 1968, to a chubby mum and a giant of a father, ripe and ready for the fad and fast foods of the 1970s.

There is a lot of debate about genetics versus diet and lifestyle when it comes to the state of one's chubbiness. I don't know if there is a chubby gene in my family. There may be. I can remember my father going through a chubby phase and my grandmother and uncle were most certainly on the chubby side. Although my mum's side of the family were known for "the Chadwick curse" (most of the Chadwick women had heavy thighs and bottoms), my aunts were slim. My mum was not. From as young as I can remember my mum has always been chubby. It's only in her later years that she has 'shrunk'. With age I think.

So what does a chubby baby with (potentially?) chubby genes and chubby parents become? A chubby toddler. A grumpy, chubby toddler. LOL, in every photo of me as a toddler, I seem grumpy. I'm not smiling in any of them. I've no idea why.

I digress. Sorry. I do that.

I have four brothers, none of whom were particularly chubby growing up. In fact one of my brothers, who was born very premature, was skinny. I mean the type of skinny where you could count the bones in his back skinny.

Today, two of my brothers are obese, one morbidly so. One has had chubby periods throughout his adult life but for the most part has maintained a healthy weight with the help of his wife, work and active lifestyle. My remaining brother has always maintained a healthy weight. Both of my obese brothers, are obese because of their diets and lifestyles. So unless the chubby gene runs only in the women in my family, I suspect my lifelong weight problems have not been the direct result of an inherited chubby gene.

So what happened to that grumpy, chubby toddler? Environment and life experiences moulded her into a young woman with low self esteem and a distorted self body image. A young woman who was fit, active and a healthy weight. A young woman with undiagnosed mental illnesses who eventually followed a life of self destruction. A young woman who despite being rescued by a knight in shining armour went on to gain weight. A lot of weight. A young woman who over time, on a number of occasions lost a lot of weight only to regain more. A young woman who eventually, one day, woke up to find she was middle aged and killing herself.

I'm the brunette on the right (clearly!). It is the winter of 2012 and I'm sick, unhappy and unhealthy. I'm unfit. I'm not even at my heaviest weight in this photo. At my heaviest (before my MS diagnosis) I weighed in at 155kg. I can't (not won't) show you a photo of me at 155kg because, quite simply, there isn't one.

Fast forward nine months to March 2013 and this is me now ..

I'm still very, very big. I'm still 'sick'. But I'm happier. Healthier. I'm fitter and stronger. I feel like a young woman again, albeit in a middle aged woman's body. I'm taking care of myself, of my health. I'm the lightest (122.4kg) I've been in a very, very, long time. I've taken the first of many, many steps on quite possibly what is one of the toughest journeys of my life. I look forward to sharing this journey with you. Where will it take me? Where will I end up? What will my life be like? I don't know, but I am confident I am finally heading in the right direction.

Alz
:)