Miscalculations

In the world of weight management, there is one factor that can silently sabotage your efforts...bad information. While much of the world is doing a great job of listing their calorie counts on their menus and in nutritional data online, not every restaurant does this yet. When having to do it on your own, it is quite possible that you will miscalculate things you eat.

This week, I did that. And I gained weight because of it. Thanks to My Fitness Pal, I was able to look at which foods I KNEW I got right, which then allowed me to see what I must have counted wrong. This did several things for me:

• It allows me to never eat those foods again, since I clearly can't properly account for them
• It allows me to NOT beat myself up for the weight gain
• and most importantly, it allows me to NOT let this to be a setback 

When you're trying to be healthy and lose weight (or gain it), as with everything in life, there is going to be a learning curve. Some days, weeks, months everything will go the way you think it will. And some won't. That's normal. When you don't know why it happened, it's easy to tell yourself that you failed, that your body is against you, that you might as well just give up because you clearly can't do this.

But when you know why, when you have the right tools and the means of changing your thought life to support you instead of sabotage you, miscalculations can be seen for what they are. Miscalculations. Not an attack, not a failure, not a character flaw. Just a simple, human, miscalculation.

So as I start my Friday, instead of feeling weaker, I actually feel stronger. I know how to do better next week, I know what to avoid and what doesn't support my efforts. I feel empowered.

***Sidenote: You'll notice in my post on what I eat, instead of deleting the things that contributed to this gain, I lined them out so that you too can avoid them :)

Bullies

While walking on the treadmill yesterday, I picked up and read Glamour Magazine. They've always been my favorite and the article I read just reinforced why. They covered the story of a newswoman who last year was bullied by a viewer. He emailed her this:

Hi Jennifer, It's unusual that I see your morning show, but I did so for a very short time today. I was surprised indeed to witness that your physical condition hasn't improved for many years. Surely you don't consider yourself a suitable example for this community's young people, girls in particular. Obesity is one of the worst choices a person can make and one of the most dangerous habits to maintain. I leave you this note hoping that you'll reconsider your responsibility as a local public personality to present and promote a healthy lifestyle.

As someone who has spent my entire adult life obese thanks to health issues, the word that struck me as the most ignorant was the word CHOICE. It made me really ponder the thought life of a person who would choose that word in this situation. Choice. I realized that there is an entire population of people who honestly believe that the way people get fat is by laying around the house eating McDonalds and Haagen Daas.

While I will give you that they do exist, I don't actually know ANYONE who got overweight through laziness and overeating. The laziness and overeating come because of the obesity, not the other way around. The obesity is usually a symptom of an illness...from asthma to pregnancy to hypothyroidism to joint/leg injuries to cancer to weak organs. The weight starts to come on quickly and before you know it you can't move and it basically doesn't matter how much or little you eat, it all just increases your waistline.

While it's easy to assume this man is an idiot or moron, I received an email from a friend of mine from church after my last post thanking me for teaching him so much. He is a learned, intelligent, articulate man in his 40s who is an athlete and he had no idea that there were steroids used medicinally or that they could alter one's body composition. It's unfortunate in today's society that the majority of people actually have no idea what obesity is, how it happens or what it means.

Everyone has their cross to bear; but if you would, take a moment to contemplate if whatever your issues are were out there for the world to see and judge. My asthma made me take meds that increased my weight significantly. I'm finally on my way back to health, but it took decades of trying and failing before I understood what my body needed and could mentally attack the pain in my joints and difficulty breathing in order to actually work out.

The only reason anyone knows I have an issue is because it caused an external symptom called obesity. Those suffering from bi-polar disorder, cancer, depression, IBS, etc generally do so in private. They would not be very happy if the whole world could tell just by looking at them that something was off. And then on top of it, to be blamed for it and told it is "one of the worst choices a person can make and one of the most dangerous habits to maintain."

The next time you see someone you consider obese, instead of thinking "wow, they should put down the donut and hit the gym," a more realistic thought would be, "whatever they're struggling to fight, I pray they get the help they need."

Happy hump day, folks :)

Steroids and weight gain

Being an asthmatic and sick is no fun. Part of the joy of it is having to take steroids so you can breathe. No, they aren't anabolic steroids...they're corti-steroids which reduce inflammation and help my lungs relax. Yay for breathing, but along with it comes weight gain, grumpiness, insomnia and a general lack of energy. I only have 1 more day of them, thank goodness. They resulted in a gain of 4 pounds this week...ugh. They also make you hungrier, which doesn't help the matter.

When I was a kid, my well meaning grandmother got me a cat for Christmas. Soon after, my mom found me on the sofa after school barely breathing. When we got to the doctor, my asthma had returned with a vengeance and I was immediately put on a grip of steroids. Within the year I had gained 85 pounds. As a ballet and tap dancer, this was devastating. It changed my whole world and was sick to my stomach with an ulcer by the end of the year. I ended up taking myself off of all of them and just avoiding anything and everything that triggered my asthma.

It is that weight which I'm still trying to get rid of now at 34 years old. 25 years of weight from those steroids. I can forget sometimes why I got here, but moments like this...having to be back on them and seeing things change so quickly...reminds me of it all and the struggle I had at such a young age. It makes me grateful to have a strong prayer life now, a strong support system now, and the self-esteem to talk about it so that it no longer has a hold on my emotional health.

I know that next week I will be back on track and feeling great, this is just a blip, but it stinks just the same.