What is wrong with me?

I think part of it has to do with last week's passing of Hannah, but I was doing it before too.

I have this sick habit of my mind wandering and imagining all the horrible things that can happen to the girls or J.

For example: I have this HUGE fear of driving over bridges because I'm afraid that we'll go over the side and into the water and I won't be able to get both girls out in time. Since Jana started walking and now running, I have this awful fear of her falling on something and seriously hurting herself. When we go out walking or running, I am afraid of someone hitting us with their car or being attacked by a dog. I'm deathly afraid of our dog attacking Jana. This last one is pretty irrational, but since the 4th when Maiya was bitten by another dog and her latest growling/moaning at Jana when Jana falls on her or tries to get around her and pushes her, I'm totally afraid of it.

I try not to let it bother me too much, but they are these very vivid daydream-like images in my head. I think we're going to get into a car accident every time we get in the car and the girls will get hurt.

It's not like a full-blown panic attack, but it's this little knot in the bottom of my stomach.

I had this with Jana too, but it seems to be worse this time because I have the two of them to worry about. I also have these horrible images of how I try to survive if I lost J.

I seriously don't know what is wrong with me. It's not like it's all-consuming, but when I have nothing else on my mind and some quiet time, they come back.

Ugh! I feel like a nut case!

New Perspective

I am a bad friend. I know this, but I don't know how to fix it.

Background: I used to be a drama queen. I got swept up in every little bit of gossip and drama at work and with friends. It drove me crazy, but I didn't know how to get out of that cycle. Having Jana (and now Kara) has changed my perspective so dramatically, that I now have little patience for drama.

The events of last week have furthered my change of perspective on drama. When someone loses her brilliant and radiant (in beauty and love for life) daughter, the little piddly things that people get swept up in are just that: piddly. Life is too precious and short to waste your time and energy on such nonsense.

So, I have a friend who has had a streak of bad luck following some poor decisions. Every time something comes up with it, the drama comes back and she goes back to wallowing in her misery. Her situation does suck (and I'm being vague because I know she's visited my blog before) and I feel badly for her situation, but I am just not a good enough friend to help her through it anymore.

I know part of it is that so much of my emotional energy was spent last week. I still cry for poor Rach when I read her blog. I see her strength as she goes through this and am awed and humbled.

I just can't seem to muster up anymore sympathy for my friend. I'm tired of her going through this and tired of hearing about it... not that I would ever want her to feel like she can't come to me.

Between all of my time and energy going to my girls, I have very little left to offer her.

I wish I could be a better friend, but I'm so incredibly sick of drama.

Diet Day 19

So, I went in today expecting to have lost very little. We upped my food since I was always so hungry and have increased my exercise so much. So, I thought for sure I hadn't lost much. Plus, I had just eaten lunch. Wrong! Four pounds. I'm now two pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight. I'm so excited. I feel like I'm actually learning how to eat well and finally making a difference in my weight. I'm slightly worried about the effects on my milk and Kara because I'm losing so much, so fast, but then I think about the fact that I'm eating a ton of food and very healthy foods.

Want to lose 46 lbs.

Thurs 7/5: Sign up day. Starting amount I want to lose: 46 lbs to go

Friday 7/6: Got my menus. Somehow I was down 3 lbs. 43 lbs to go

Wed 7/11: First weigh in and Day 5 on diet: down 5 lbs. 38 lbs to go

Wed 7/18: Second weigh in and Day 12 on diet: down 1.5 lbs. 36.5 lbs to go

Wed 7/25: Third weigh in and Day 19 on diet: down 4 lbs. 31.5 lbs to go

Total weight loss: 14.5 lbs.

Not my place, but I can't get it off my mind.

Feel free to skip this post.

I feel awkward about writing this because I don't know Rachael or Hannah, but I can't get them out of my head and cry for them every few hours.

First, I'm not necessarily a violent person, but I would like to hunt down and beat all people who think it is their place to criticize and say hurtful things. The downside of the internet is that the anonymity the internet provides allows people to think they can say anything that they want. I use to be a judgmental person, but motherhood has humbled me immensely (thank goodness). Here is my mantra to live by: Unless I have lived his/her life, know all the struggles this person faces, and have experienced all of the life-shaping events in that person's life, I have no right to judge. Most everyone makes decisions for the best for their families and are doing the best he/she can for her children. We all suffer from the facade of invincibility. We all think we are invincible and that "it" won't happen to us... until it does. Do we all make decisions that can be seen as risky in retrospect? Absolutely! But do we do it intentionally? No way!

There's my rant.

I see that picture of sweet, little Hannah and I want to cry. I didn't know her. I only know her aunt as an internet friend. That doesn't stop me from hurting for this poor family. I think of what I would do if I lost Jana and I feel sick... and I've only had her in my life for 17 months. I can't even imagine having her for 5 years, loving her, getting to know that independent personality and growing so close to her and then losing her.

I feel so weird about having this strong of sorrow for a family I've never met. Maybe it's still the pregnancy hormones. I don't think it's that. I think once you become a mother and experience that awesome strength of love you feel for your child, knowing there is another mother out there who has lost her precious child, you can't help but grieve for her.

As I've heard many times, "No one should have to bury her child."

Please excuse my emotional outpouring. I feel out of place needing to write about this, but my heart just aches.

Diet Day 12

I had a weigh-in yesterday and I was down another 1.5 lbs.

Part of me was a little disappointed because I'm exercising so much. They did up what I am eating because I'm doing so much and nursing that I was starving at the end of the day and waking up hungry in the middle of the night.

We'll see how it goes.

So now I'm down a total of 9.5 lbs.

Here is where I'm at.

Want to lose 46 lbs.

Thurs 7/5: Sign up day. Starting amount I want to lose: 46 lbs to go

Friday 7/6: Got my menus. Somehow I was down 3 lbs. 43 lbs to go

Wed 7/11: First weigh in and Day 5 on diet: down 5 lbs. 38 lbs to go

Wed 7/18: Second weigh in and Day 12 on diet: down 1.5. 36.5 lbs to go

Yikes that is still a lot and a long way to go. Ugh!!!

Diet Day 5

I had my first real weigh in today.

Since I'm too embarrassed to post my weight, we'll do a count down.

Thurs 7/5: Sign up day. Starting amount I want to lose: 46 lbs to go

Friday 7/6: Got my menus. Somehow I was down 3 lbs. 43 lbs to go

Wed 7/11: First weigh in and Day 5 on diet: down 5 lbs. 38 lbs to go


I'm not usually one of those that loses a lot of weight at the beginning of a diet, since it is mostly water weight, but I finally lost a lot of my water weight gain from my pregnancy.

What I've been doing well: My fridge is stocked with chopped up peppers, cucumbers, mushrooms, sugar snap peas and cherry tomatoes so I can easily eat all my veggies easily. Also, we have washed raspberries, blackberries, cherries, and blueberries and chopped up watermelon ready to go.

What's hard: I miss my carbs. There is a Carb lover thing where I can trade one of my proteins for a balanced protein-carb meal and I use that for my cereal addiction. I try to only do it every other day so I can start weaning myself off that many carbs. It's not that I don't get to have carbs, but I'm having much less than I did before. I'm an addict. :-)

I'm working so hard to do this right. I really want this to be my last diet ever. Or at least my last time needing to lose more than 10 lbs.

Thanks for your support everybody! I'm not telling anyone that I'm doing this except for two of my friends and J's parents who are going to join too. They did it before and were successful, so she wants to do it again. I'm not telling my family or anybody else because at least with my mom, it's setting myself up for negative feedback and I don't need/want that.

Diet Day 3

So far so good. I am shocked at how much I have to eat in a day. I haven't cheated (yet), but have had to go buy bars for my sweet fix and made some not-as-healthy food choices (animal crackers instead of something healthier), but things that I can still eat.

My favorite thing about this diet is that I'm eating all day - mostly fruits and veggies, but still it's not like I can't eat. It has forced me to do a lot of prepping before I get hungry. So, right now I have containers of chopped green, red, and yellow peppers (to be eaten raw or cooked), mushrooms, cucumbers, sugar snap peas, watermelon, and blueberries. It's working out well because I don't have the excuse of it being too much effort and there isn't anything quick. I just have to be good about making sure I don't run out of those things.

I can tell I've already lost weight - water weight, of course. My hands are almost back to normal now from the pregnancy and I can put on one of my rings. I haven't been able to wear either of my rings for probably 4 or 5 months.

I have an appt tomorrow afternoon to see where I'm at.

Here I go.

So I made a decision today... well, actually last night, but put it into action today.

I was downloading pictures from J's hard drive that he downloaded from his parents and brother. I am always the one taking our pictures, so I hardly ever see pictures of myself. I saw a picture of me sitting down and saw... rolls. I just about puked - I was so nauseous seeing myself.

I have a ridiculously strong desire to delete everyone's copies of pictures of me, because I am so humiliated by how I look in them. So that leaves me with one of two options when it comes to pictures: either not be in any pictures throughout my children's lives (like my mother) or get off my ass and do something about it.

I watched the Shaq show about the obese kids and they showed the two parents of one of the kids and my first thought was: oh, that explains why the kid is so fat. My next thought was who the hell am I to talk and it also dawned on me that I'm setting that same example for my girls.

I don't want my girls to see me as fat and unhealthy. I don't want my girls to see me struggling to lose weight. I don't want this to be a lifetime preoccupation. I want my girls to see me at a healthy weight, eating healthy, and exercising for fun and my health. That's the example I want to set. I watched my mom yo-yo diet and go from a size 20 to an 8 and back again many times. She was obsessed and closet binged.

I heard Oprah say something this week about how she wasted her 30s by being so obsessed with her weight. I have two little girls who need me to get over it and spend that time and energy on them. I know some people aren't bothered by their weight - I'm not one of them. I feel gross and it affects what I do, how I approach people, my sex life, my mood, I could go on.

So, here I say it and will need to keep reminding myself of this as I go.

I'M DONE BEING FAT AND WASTING ENERGY ON WORRYING ABOUT BEING FAT.

This person in this fat body is not who I am and if I don't take care of this now, before my girls can remember this, I will not be the mom I want to be. I'm not trying to offend anyone who is overweight and fine with it. I made myself a promise the moment Jana was born. I promised myself that I would never put pressure on her for her weight and would instill healthy habits. I want her to feel good about her appearance and who she is. But most of all, I don't want to be my mother. I want to be the model of a strong (mentally, emotionally, and physically) female in their lives. I want them to see me as healthy and active. I don't want them to see me obsessing about my weight and have it rub off on them.

I always said I didn't want to have girls because I was afraid I would screw them up. I have spent my entire life (or at least as far back as I can remember) being embarrassed about my weight. I felt like my mom's example told me I needed to be self-conscious of my weight (even though I wore the same size as all my "skinny" friends) as early as elementary school.

So, this is it. Good bye fat. Good bye obsession. Good bye waste of time and energy.

I know it is going to take time, especially since I am still nursing, but I want to get started now. Saying that I'm waiting until I'm done nursing is just giving me a feeling of hopelessness.

So, today I joined L A Weightloss. I am planning on losing 46 lbs. That should take me to a healthy (not super skinny) weight that I can maintain. I don't want to lose more than that right now because I am not sure that I can maintain it and I don't want to set myself up for failure.

I did a ton of research before I joined. I know all of the negatives and feel I am choosing this for the right reasons. I'm not looking for an easy way out. I'm not looking for a miracle cure. I'm looking for a plan that I need to follow and work my ass off at and someone to sit with me and look at my food diary and tell me what I'm doing right and wrong. I need individual accountability, not group anonymity.

When I went in, I told them upfront that I wasn't going to take their supplements or eat their bars. I'm nursing and not going to put the chemicals that they put in those bars into my daughter. I also told them that I didn't even want to have the conversation about them, so I made her write it down that I was not to be talked to about the "extras."

So, here I go. Changing my life.

For whom? For these two.






Here is the only picture I have on my computer where I don't cringe at how I look. In fact, despite thinking I was fat at the time, I could live with being this size again. This was right after we got married.

This isn't a flattering picture either, but this is from our wedding and again, I think I could live being this size again.

Routines

So, I feel like a bad person for saying this, but it's so hard to have J home for the summer. Today he asked me if having him home gets in the way of our routine and I said yes. I told him the hardest part was that I can't shower until he gets up and some days I don't get a shower until I go to bed (gross!) and that is frustrating. Before he got out of school, I'd get up and shower before the girls got up for the day and it was so much better that way.

Oh well.

Off to go clean out the old fridge!